An International Issue (2)

Eight International Conventions on Drug Control over the 100 Years

1. The International Opium Commission. The International Opium Commission, as the first international anti-drug conference was held in Shanghai on February 1, 1909. Altogether 13 countries include China, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, the United States, and Portugal participated. Nine resolutions, concerning to limit the use quantity of opium for legitimate purposes, to put opium imports under surveillance, and to prohibit opium addiction gradually, and so on, have been made at the conference. Although the nine resolutions being suggestions in nature are not binding on the signatory countries, its certain principles have been incorporated into the subsequent International Conventions on Drug Control.

2. The Hague Opium Convention. The Hague Opium Convention was signed jointly by 13 countries, including China, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, etc. at Hague during an international anti-drug conference in January 1912. As the first international document in the world field of drug control with legal binding force, the Convention, concluded in accordance with the recommendations of the International Opium Commission held in Shanghai in 1909, was widely accepted by all nations in the first half of the twentieth century. It is not only of significant importance to the development of the modern major international anti-drug conventions, but also of great significance in the history of international drug control cooperation. China is one of the 13 founding signatories of the Convention. Main outcomes of the Convention: to require the signatories to develop legal regulation to regulate and control the production, sale and import of raw opium; to gradually prohibit the manufacture, trafficking and addiction of prepared opium; and to take effective measure to manage and control morphine, heroin, coca and other narcotics.