ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the national and international level to control the spread of opium and its derivatives. It discusses the obstacles they have faced and the extent to which they have been overcome. The chapter also focuses on the notion and philosophy of control. Pakistan is signatory to all United Nation conventions on drug production, trafficking and addiction, accepting an obligation to check illicit opium and heroin production within her territorial jurisdiction and to check heroin addiction. Geography plays a dual role in the production of opium in Pakistan, keeping cultivation areas inaccessible to control. Drug production is international in character, and it has long been recognized that any solution to it must also, therefore, be internationally conceived and implemented. The movement for liberalization is gaining momentum, with politicians, police and other law enforcement officers, medical professionals and legal experts increasingly regarding legalization as the only way to tackle drugs and drug related problems.
