First International Opium Convention (1912)[edit]
In 1909, a 13-nation International Opium Commission was held in Shanghai, in response to increasing criticism of the opium trade and to the Opium Wars. A few years later, in 1912, the First International Opium Conference was convened in The Hague to continue the discussions initiated in Shanghai.
The International Opium Convention (or 1912 Opium Convention) which was signed at the end of the Hague Conference, on 23 January 1912, is considered as the first international drug control treaty. It was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on January 23, 1922.[4] The treaty was signed by Germany, the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Persia, Portugal, Russia, and Siam. The convention provided, "The contracting Powers shall use their best endeavours to control, or to cause to be controlled, all persons manufacturing, importing, selling, distributing, and exporting morphine, cocaine, and their respective salts, as well as the buildings in which these persons carry such an industry or trade."
The convention was implemented in 1915 by the United States, Netherlands, China, Honduras, and Norway. It went into force globally in 1919, when it was incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles. The primary objective of the convention was to introduce restrictions on exports; it did not entail any prohibition or criminalisation of the uses and cultivation of opium poppy, the coca plant, or cannabis.
The Opium Conventions after Second World War[edit]
After the second world war, the two Opium Conventions were amended to transfer the mandates and functions of the League of Nations and the Office international d'hygiène publique to the United Nations and World Health Organization.[14] Eventually, both the 1912 and the 1925 Conventions were superseded by the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs which merged the Permanent Central Opium Board and the Drug Supervisory Body onto the INCB.