The United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances entered into force on November 11, 1990. This international agreement sets out common standards of responsibility for the illegal drug trade and has become the basis for signatory nations' own anti-drug legislation.
Today, drug use is a recognised evil. Numerous countries suffer from this epidemic of drug addiction and, with its estimated worth of $10-$13 billion, the global narcotics market serves as a major source of revenue for organised crime. But this has not always been the case. Both drug addiction and the struggle against it changed a great deal on their way to becoming what we recognise today.
Opium trade: A gentleman's hobby
Drug use became a widespread phenomenon across Europe in the 19th century when Indian opium began to circulate in the United Kingdom. In France a similar phenomenon was taking shape involving hashish imported from its North African colonies.
Narcotic drugs were not inherently seen as taboo. In fact, Britain's East India Company was actively marketing Indian opium in China. There was no ignoring the harm this did the Chinese population, and the Chinese Government's attempts to thwart this trade led to two opium wars. The drug trade was at that point essentially state-controlled, and many high-profile aristocrats, including members of the royal family, profited greatly from this business.
The Opium Wars are one of the darkest episodes in Chinese history and modern Chinese anti-drug legislation is among the toughest in the world. At that time, Europeans believed opium to be a less dangerous "poison" than hard liquor. Unlike alcohol, opium was not subject to high duties which meant it was accessible for the majority of the population. It was even thought that small amounts of opium were harmless and could help people cope with everyday life.
Morphine and syringes only exacerbated the problem: Users could now inject drugs directly into their bloodstream. People believed that, unlike opium, morphine was not addictive. This fallacy was quickly dispelled once it became apparent that wounded soldiers suffered from morphine addiction following operations in which it was used as an anesthetic.
Some of today's high-profile drugs, such as cocaine and diacetylmorphine (more commonly known as heroin) first became popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Cocaine was first sold in the United States in 1885 and the first batch of heroin was sold in Germany in 1898. Cocaine was used as a powerful stimulant, almost like energy drinks are used today, and Germany's Bayer AG initially marketed heroin as a tranquiliser and anesthetic.
The dragon breaks free
By this point most specialists had realised that drug use did in fact lead to both mental and physical addiction. Mental addiction is a state where addicts need their hit to feel that sense of euphoria while people suffering from physical addiction experience a period of "cold turkey" or withdrawal during any prolonged period of abstinence from the drug. The non-medical use of narcotics and consequently their legal circulation have been steadily restricted since the early twentieth century.
But a parallel process was underway: New, synthetic, drugs were starting to be produced. These included artificial mescaline (a substance also naturally present in the Mexican cactus), amphetamines and LSD, all of which were widely used in many countries' Armies during World War II. They were primarily used as stimulants by military pilots, commandos and other sections of the armed forces, something that continued through to the 1970s.
Widespread amphetamine use led to a veritable addiction epidemic and an explosion in criminal activity: From the illegal drugs trade to robberies and murders committed by cash-strapped addicts desperate for their next hit. When amphetamine production fell, heroin consumption increased to compensate, analysts explain. Since the 1950s and the 1960s, heroin occupied an unassailable position as the 'king of drugs', especially in Europe and Asia. The Golden Triangle, an area spanning the mountains of Burma, Laos, and Thailand that essentially lay outside the control of any Government, accounted for the bulk of opium-poppy and heroin production.
The drug trade developed into a slick illegal industry encompassing the entire world. The growth of opium-poppies and the production, transportation and sale of heroin were facilitated by the close cooperation of major crime rings, particularly the Asian Triads and the Italian Mafia.
Secret service chiefs also became increasingly interested in this murky trade because its proceeds were clearly the best way of financing a wide range of covert operations. Notably, revenue generated from heroin sales made it possible to fund US arms shipments to the mujahideen at the beginning of the 1979-1989 Afghan War. After the Soviet Army withdrew in 1989, Afghanistan replaced the Golden Triangle as the world's largest drugs plantation: Opium poppies from this area are currently used to make 90 per cent of the world's heroin.
A disease of our globalised world
Any attempt to understand how, by the early 21st century, drug addiction had become a global calamity and the illegal drug trade — a highly profitable and resilient business should focus on two main causes. First, there is the undisputed process of globalisation. The technological revolution of the 20th century enabled communications to expand on a previously unheard-of scale, bringing remote countries and regions closer together than ever before and reducing transport costs. Chemical breakthroughs facilitated enhanced drug production capacity, pushing prices for the final product down despite whatever bans may be in place.
The second reason is related to the fundamental principles of how human society functions. Increased stress and negative psychological pressure on individuals combined with a desire to escape the tedium of reality form the main reasons behind this rise in drug addiction. There are, in addition, numerous other factors from longstanding traditions to the desire to set oneself apart from the crowd.
Drug use is an excellent indicator by which to assess the affluence and mood of a society, as it tends to increase when stability, reasonable employment, education and leisure opportunities are lacking. These days hard drugs are banned everywhere, but the punishments meted out are not uniform: Some countries hang people found with a quantity of heroin on them, while others focus on punishing the drug dealers. The attitude toward soft drugs (chiefly marijuana) also varies country to country.
Some places have already legalized marijuana: The Netherlands was the first country to decriminalize it in 1972 and today it is sold openly at cafes nationwide. It was once thought that decriminalizing soft drugs would make hard drugs less popular, and that drug-related crime rates would fall. Analysts still disagree over the lessons to be learned from the Dutch experience.
