A century of international drug control

In 2009, the International Narcotics Control Board will commemorate the centennial of the first international drug control conference held in Shanghai, China, in February, 1909.

In 1909, highly addictive substances were freely traded across borders in unregulated markets. The consequences were devastating as the numbers of drug addicts increased and drug trade was at the centre of international tensions that resulted in wars.

Throughout the 1900s, opium production and trade reached catastrophic levels. Tens of millions of Chinese became addicted and China's unilateral efforts to control the situation were not crowned by long-term success.

At the turn of the 20 ^th century, humanity was facing the worst drug problem in history: the Chinese opium epidemic and it became clear that the problem required an international approach.

A forum that became known as the International Opium Commission, held in Shanghai in 1909, laid the groundwork for the first international drug control treaty, the International Opium Convention of The Hague of 1912.

The Convention of 1925 established the Permanent Central Opium (Narcotics) Board to manage the statistical information provided by countries on narcotics and to monitor international trade. The Board was an impartial body whose members were not government representatives but served in their personal capacity. The 1931 Convention established a Drug Supervisory Body to monitor the operation of an estimates system that would limit the manufacturing of drugs to scientific and medical purposes.

Over the years, the international drug control system became increasingly complex with a multitude of treaties and agreements, which in 1961, were consolidated into the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. The Single Convention also established the International Narcotics Control Board, merging the Permanent Central Narcotics Board and the Drug Supervisory Body.

Today, the three international drug control treaties ( Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961 --- Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971 --- United Nations Convention against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988.)  in force have near universal adherence and while challenges remain, one hundred years of international drug control deserve to be remembered and commemorated.