International Opium Convention (1925)

For the earlier convention signed at The Hague on 23 January 1912, see International Opium Convention (1912).

International Opium Convention, adopted by the Second Opium Conference (League of Nations). Signed at Geneva, February 19, 1925

Publication

Author	Plenipotentiaries of the states represented at the Second Opium Conference of the League of Nations
Language	English and French (both texts authentic)
Composed	17 November 1924 – 19 February 1925 (the Second Opium Conference); signed 19 February 1925
Published	1928 (League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 81)
Publisher	League of Nations
Place	Geneva
Total pages	League of Nations Treaty Series vol. 81, pp. 317–358 (with the Protocol), English and French on facing pages

Cannabis Content

Volume	(single text)
Pages	Art. 1 (the definition of "Indian hemp"), p. 329; art. 4(f), p. 329; chapter IV, art. 11, p. 333
Chapter	Chapter IV, "Indian Hemp"
Preparations	Galenical extract and tincture of Indian hemp; the resin and "the ordinary preparations of which the resin forms the base (such as hashish, esrar, chiras, djamba)"
Uses documented	Medical and scientific use; international trade under import certificates

Access

Digital facsimile	View the League of Nations Treaty Series scan
Original held at	Archives of the Secretariat of the League of Nations, Geneva (the single signed copy)

The International Opium Convention signed at Geneva on 19 February 1925 is the treaty of the League of Nations' Second Opium Conference that brought cannabis, under the name "Indian hemp", into international drug control.^{: 319, 329, 333} It defined Indian hemp as the dried flowering or fruiting tops of the female plant and put the medicinal extract and tincture under the controls it applied to manufactured drugs. A separate chapter required import certificates for the export of Indian hemp and its resin.^{: 329, 333} Its chapter on the internal control of raw materials covers raw opium and coca leaves.^: 329 The convention entered into force on 25 September 1928 and was replaced, between the parties to it, by the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961.^{: 319: art. 44}

Cannabis was not on the conference's agenda. Egypt's first delegate, Mohamed El Guindy, asked in November 1924 for hashish to be added to the drugs under control. The conference's experts then drafted rules that would have confined Indian hemp to medical and scientific use and barred all trade in its resin. India would accept control of its exports but not of use within its borders. The text signed in February 1925 controls the international trade in Indian hemp and its resin. Within each country it controls only the medicinal extract and tincture.^{: 39, 136, 222: 318–319: 329, 333}

The convention calls the plant's flowering tops "Indian hemp", and the delegates spoke of "hashish" for the plant and its products alike. What the delegates said about cannabis and the people who used it is evidence of how their governments saw both, as much as it is evidence of the plant.

Origins

Hashish was not among the drugs to which the International Opium Convention signed at The Hague in 1912 applied.^: 134 A paragraph in that convention's protocol called for the problem of hashish to be examined, and for its regulation if that should prove necessary.^: 297 In 1923 the government of the Union of South Africa proposed to the League of Nations that Indian hemp be treated as a habit-forming drug under the Hague convention. The League's Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs recommended at its sixth session that governments first be asked for information on the production and use of the drug and the trade in it, with their observations on the South African proposal, and that the committee take up the question again in 1925.^: 374 South Africa had prohibited the cultivation, sale, possession and use of cannabis nationwide in June 1922.^: 10

The Second Opium Conference met at Geneva from 17 November 1924 to 19 February 1925.^{: title page} It was called to give effect to the Hague convention and to limit the production of opium and coca and the manufacture of the drugs made from them.^: 10 Sir Malcolm Delevingne, for the British Empire, told it that "it was not intended, when this Conference was summoned, that hashish should be discussed".^: 136

Egypt's proposal

El Guindy, the first delegate of Egypt, raised the question in a statement to the conference on 19 November 1924. He called hashish a product "at least as harmful as opium, if not more so", said that Egypt had long prohibited its import except for the small quantities needed in medicine and asked for it to be classed with the other narcotics.^: 39–40 Egypt's written proposals, circulated as document O.D.C. 44, asked first "that hashish be included in the list of dangerous drugs with which we are to deal".^{: 23, 34}

He set out his case in a memorandum read to the sixteenth plenary meeting on 13 December 1924.^: 132 He described the preparations eaten in Egypt (manzul, maagun and garawish) and the smoking of hashish in water pipes. He listed the measures Egypt had taken: a ban on cultivation in 1884, the closing of the cafés where it was smoked and fines for cultivators and smugglers.^: 133 He told the conference that hashish was "the principal cause of most of the cases of insanity occurring in Egypt", accounting for "from 30 to 60 per cent" of them. He added that the South African government had made the same proposal as his own.^: 134 He argued that if opium and the other drugs were controlled and hashish was left out, hashish would take their place. He also told the delegates that, knowing "the mentality of Oriental peoples", he feared it would be said that the question had been set aside "because it did not affect the safety of Europeans".^: 135

Alfred Sze of China seconded him. Stephen G. Porter, for the United States, said the conference was asking Egypt and Turkey to help suppress opium and coca and that "this is a good time to practise a little reciprocity".^: 135 The delegates of India, the British Empire and France answered that enquiries were under way and that the delegations most concerned, India's and France's, had no instructions. Delevingne added that the question had first been brought to the League by the government of one of the British Dominions. In his view the conference could not bring hashish under the full provisions of the Hague convention. M. Bourgois, for France, said that his government could apply strict measures in France but not in the Congo.^: 135–137 The proposal was referred unanimously to Sub-Committee F, the conference's committee of experts.^: 137–138

The experts' draft

Sub-Committee F, chaired by the Swiss delegate Dr Carrière, set up a smaller committee on hashish on 15 December 1924 under Professor Perrot of the French delegation, with members from the British Empire, Chile, Egypt, France, Greece, Japan, Turkey and the United States.^{: 294, 296} At the sub-committee's meeting the next day the Greek delegate called the question of hashish as grave as that of opium. The Brazilian delegate, Dr Pernambuco, called hashish more dangerous than opium. The Belgian, American, Japanese and Spanish members agreed to its inclusion. The Turkish delegate asked how the cultivation of hemp for textiles would be treated.^: 297

The definition was settled on 17 December. Perrot wanted it to cover all the varieties of the plant. The British member, Perrins, objected on administrative grounds: male and female plants were mixed together in making bhang, so a definition that left out the male plant would hamper prosecutions. He recommended the definition of the English pharmacopoeia. The text adopted read: "By Indian hemp is understood the dried flowering or fruiting tops of the pistillate plant of Cannabis sativa, from which the resin has not been extracted, under whatever name they may be designated in commerce." At the request of the Turkish and Brazilian delegates, the names under which the drug was known in their countries, essra and diamba, were added to the list of preparations.^: 298 Every member present voted for the absolute prohibition of the use of the resin except the British, Dutch and Indian members, who abstained. The British delegation reserved its position.^: 298

Perrot's report noted that hemp also gave fibre for cloth, cordage and matting and seeds for oil, so that the area grown would not be easy to limit.^: 318 It recommended that "the use of Indian hemp and the preparations derived therefrom may only be authorised for medical and scientific purposes" and that the raw resin (charas) and its preparations "may not be produced, sold, traded in, &c., under any circumstances whatsoever".^: 318

The Indian delegation answered in a note dated 23 January 1925. The Government of India would control exports through the import-certificate system. It had not consulted the provinces or the Indian States on controlling production, sale and use within India, where ganja was grown only in small areas under excise control and charas was imported under licence from Central Asia. It pointed to "serious difficulties of an administrative order" in confining hemp drugs to medical and scientific use, among them "social and religious customs which naturally have to be considered". It doubted whether the total prohibition of drugs made easily from a wild-growing plant could be enforced.^: 319

The text adopted in February 1925

On 6 February 1925 the United States delegation withdrew from the conference, writing that "the purpose for which the Conference was called cannot be accomplished". The Chinese delegation also withdrew. Their letters were read on 7 February.^: 201–204 Neither country is among the convention's signatories.^{: 319, 321}

When the experts' reports came before the conference that afternoon, Mr Walton of India said that the plant grew wild and the drug was made by very simple processes, so that confining its use to medicine was "a very difficult matter from the administrative point of view". He proposed applying the import-certificate system to the international traffic instead.^: 222 On 12 February the conference set up a sub-committee of Egypt, France, the British Empire, India, Sweden, Turkey, Uruguay, Belgium and Siam to draft a text.^: 261–262 Perrot presented its agreed text on 14 February. He told the conference that the long-established customs of consuming Indian hemp made it "a problem as delicate as, and perhaps even more difficult to solve than, that of opium for smoking". The text, he said, tried to be effective in some countries without being impossible to carry out in others.^: 301 The galenical preparations went into the article on manufactured drugs. The trade in the plant and its resin went into a chapter of its own.^: 301–302

At the second reading on 18 February El Guindy and Perrot asked that the paragraph on the resin name hashish and its kindred preparations. Delevingne summed up the three ways in which the draft now dealt with Indian hemp: certain preparations under article 4, the resin under article 11(a) and the dried tops under article 11(b). The paragraph was adopted naming "the ordinary preparations of which the resin forms the base".^: 352–353 The convention was signed the next day. In signing the Final Act the delegation of Siam (now Thailand) declared that, having no instructions on Indian hemp, "which was not originally on the agenda of the Conference", it reserved chapter III as regards the galenical preparations and chapters IV and V as regards Indian hemp.^: 539

What the convention controls

The definition

Article 1 reads: "'Indian hemp' means the dried flowering or fruiting tops of the pistillate plant Cannabis sativa L. from which the resin has not been extracted, under whatever name they may be designated in commerce."^: 329 The resin is named separately, in article 11.^: 333

Medicinal preparations

Article 4(f) places the "galenical preparations (extract and tincture) of Indian hemp" in chapter III, with medicinal opium, morphine, heroin and cocaine.^: 329 For these the parties undertake to limit manufacture, import, sale, distribution, export and use "exclusively to medical and scientific purposes", to license the people who deal in them and to prohibit their delivery to or possession by unauthorised persons.^{: 329, 331}

Chapter IV: Indian hemp

Article 11 applies the trade controls of chapter V to Indian hemp and its resin and adds two rules. The parties undertake to prohibit the export of the resin "and the ordinary preparations of which the resin forms the base (such as hashish, esrar, chiras, djamba)" to countries that have prohibited their use. Where export is permitted, they require a special import certificate stating that the import is approved for the purposes it specifies and that the goods will not be re-exported. Before licensing an export of Indian hemp itself, they require a certificate from the importing government that it is "required exclusively for medical or scientific purposes". The second paragraph binds the parties to "an effective control of such a nature as to prevent the illicit international traffic in Indian hemp and especially in the resin".^: 333

Chapter V requires a separate import authorisation and export authorisation for every consignment and governs transit, free ports and bonded warehouses.^: 333–337 Each party reports to the Permanent Central Board, which chapter VI creates, the quantities of each substance the convention covers that are confiscated in illicit trade. It also reports its imports and exports every quarter.^{: 339, 341}

Scope

Chapter II, "Internal control of raw opium and coca leaves", deals with those two raw materials. The annual production statistics of article 22 are for raw opium and coca leaves.^{: 329, 341} Dave Bewley-Taylor, Tom Blickman and Martin Jelsma of the Transnational Institute write that "the Convention only dealt with the transnational dimension of the cannabis trade". In their account it did not prohibit the production of cannabis or the domestic trade in it, did not require measures to reduce domestic consumption and did not ask governments for estimates of cannabis production.^: 12 They write that the laws on cannabis that European countries passed in the following years, among them the British Dangerous Drugs Act of 1928, a revised Dutch opium law of 1928 and a German opium law of 1929, "exceeded the obligations in the Convention".^: 12

Entry into force and later history

The convention was to come into force ninety days after the last of ten ratifications, provided seven of the ratifying states were among those that appointed the Central Board and two were permanent members of the League Council.^: 349 It came into force and was registered on 25 September 1928.^: 319 The British Empire, India and South Africa deposited their ratifications on 17 February 1926. Egypt acceded on 16 March 1926. The Belgian ratification did not extend to the Belgian Congo or Ruanda-Urundi. The Netherlands ratified for the Netherlands Indies, now Indonesia. The Spanish ratification covered Spain's colonies except the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco.^{: 319, 321}

Between its parties the convention replaced chapters I, III and V of the Hague convention of 1912.^: 345 The 1961 Single Convention terminated and replaced it between the parties to the later treaty. Until the new International Narcotics Control Board was constituted, its functions fell to the Permanent Central Board.^{: art. 44, art. 45} The 1961 convention defines cannabis as "the flowering or fruiting tops of the cannabis plant (excluding the seeds and leaves when not accompanied by the tops) from which the resin has not been extracted, by whatever name they may be designated".^{: art. 1(1)(b)}

Reception and historiography

W. W. Willoughby, professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, published an account of the two Geneva conferences in 1925. He had served the Chinese delegation as counsellor and expert. His book reproduces long passages of the delegations' statements, among them El Guindy's memorandum and the Indian delegation's note, in a chapter titled "Indian Hemp (Hashish)".^{: title page, 374–381}

Bewley-Taylor, Blickman and Jelsma (2014) write that the delegates "were unprepared to contradict" El Guindy's claims despite "the lack of evidence" in his speech. They cite the 1920–21 report of the Abbasiya asylum in Cairo, which attributed 19 of 715 admissions (2.7 per cent) to hashish and 48 to alcohol, call his figure of 30 to 60 per cent "to be generous, an exaggeration". They describe the reception of his claims as "a moral panic among the delegates, the majority ill-informed".^: 11 They note that neither the British nor the Indian delegates cited the report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, which in their words "offered a much more nuanced assessment of the benefits, risks and harms of cannabis".^: 11 In their account the conference decided "without due consideration of relevant evidence" that Indian hemp was as addictive and as dangerous as opium.^: 12

See also

• Egypt
• Hashish
• Indian Hemp Drugs Commission
• International Narcotics Control Board
• Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs
• Verdoovende Middelen Ordonnantie (1927)

References

Hashish Charas Esrar Diamba Cannabis extract Cannabis tincture Medicinal Scientific International trade Legal instrument International treaty