Historique
Rapport
A century of international drug control
Auteur(s) :
ONUDC / UNODC
Article en page(s) :
104 p.
Refs biblio. :
358
Domaine :
Drogues illicites / Illicit drugs
Langue(s) :
Anglais
Discipline :
MAR (Marchés / Markets)
Thésaurus mots-clés
HISTOIRE
;
CONTROLE DES STUPEFIANTS
;
OPIUM
;
PRODUCTION
;
TRAFIC
;
MARCHE DE LA DROGUE
;
LUTTE
Thésaurus géographique
INTERNATIONAL
Note générale :
The present report is an extended version of Chapter 2 of the 'World Drug Report 2008'
Résumé :
Nearly 100 years ago, the international community met in Shanghai to discuss the single largest drug problem the world has ever known: the Chinese opium epidemic. Prior to the 1909 Shanghai Opium Commission, national governments and state-sponsored monopolies played an active role in peddling opium across borders. The profits to be made were enormous, generating as much as half of the national revenues of some island states serving as redistribution centres. Even a country the size of British India derived 14% of state income from its opium monopoly in 1880. At the peak of the opium trade, tens of millions of Chinese were addicted to the drug, and nearly a quarter of the adult male population used it annually. The massive opium imports which supplied consumers caused the countrys formerly massive foreign reserves to dwindle. China had unsuccessfully fought two wars against the British Empire to stop opium importation. When forced at gunpoint to legalise the drug, China too began to cultivate. This brought currency outflows to a halt and created a huge source of tax revenue. At the time of the Shanghai Commission, China derived at least 14% of its income from the drug. The trades enormous revenues ensured that there were important political and economic interests vested in continuing the trade. Given this, the success of anti-opium trade campaigners in using multilateralism to confront the damage caused by the opium trade is remarkable. The Shanghai Commission represents one of the first truly international efforts to confront a global problem. But the declaration of the Shanghai Commission was a non-binding document, negotiated by delegates lacking the power to commit on behalf of their states. Creating and enacting the international law and normative instruments presently available to deal with the global drug problem would be done via numerous agreements and declarations issued, and would take roughly one hundred years. [Extract]
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