ABSTRACT
The genesis and development of the international drug control treaties are closely connected with national and international responses to the changing drug abuse and illicit trafficking situation. The recommendations of the first international conference on narcotic drugs, which was held at Shanghai in 1909 (and which later became known as the Opium Commission), and the provisions of the International Opium Convention, signed at The Hague in 1912, are to be seen as the result of the international consensus reached on how to react to the then unlimited availability in several countries of narcotic drugs for non-medical use, in particular opium, which had led to the widespread abuse of those drugs, with all its health and social implications.
