In the late 18th century British merchants built up a flourishing traffic in opium from India to China.  The Chinese government tried to curb the opium trade and the emperor appointed a nationalist, Lin Tse-hsu, as Imperial commissioner for an anti-opium campaign.  In 1839 Lin arrived in the port of Canton where he confiscated and destroyed more than 20,000 chests of opium.  British merchants appealed to their government and in 1840 sixteen British warships arrived in Hong Kong.  Chinese Imperial troops were powerless against British navy guns.  In 1842, the British received reinforcements and seized several cities, including Shanghai and Nanking.  The Treaty of Nanking, concluded at the end of the Opium War in 1842, ceded Hong Kong to Great Britain, opened several Chinese ports to British trade, and granted the British special trading rights.

International drug control was initiated in response to a specific problem in a specific part of the world – opium in China.  Initiatives for international drug control have mostly come from the United States and have been driven by ethnocentric morality and economics.  In an effort to open Chinese markets to American manufacturers, the U.S. Department of State played a key role establishing international opium control during the early 1900’s.  Diplomats seeking to deflect criticism of the harsh treatment of Chinese immigrants in the U.S. feigned concern over Britain’s opium monopoly as a means of establishing closer ties with mainland China.  The U.S. sought to institute international controls on the opium trade at a time when opium and its derivatives were freely available in the U.S.  Domestic legislation was needed in order to show good faith.  Ironically, domestic legislation was facilitated by anti-Chinese sentiment.  Although only a small fraction of American drug users were Chinese, opposition to opium smoking grew as it was increasingly linked to Chinese immigrants. 

Opium and its derivatives came to be the main focus of subsequent control efforts.  International drug control began with efforts to check an unbridled opium trade controlled by British colonial powers.  The introduction of cocaine into international drug control efforts was not in response to problematic cocaine use, but rather a delaying tactic on the part of vested interests.  In an effort to maintain the lucrative opium trade as long as possible, Britain introduced dubious evidence against the coca plant as a stalling tactic.  Cannabis was also introduced with very little debate and no documented evidence of a widespread public health problem.  Alcohol was briefly placed under limited international control in Africa between the first and second war by the League of Nations.  The ban was lifted after alcohol prohibition proved to be disastrous in the United States, then and now the dominant country in terms of international drug control efforts. 

The drug control system of the League of Nations was inherited by the United Nations (UN).  The World Health Organization (WHO) participation is based on a statutory responsibility for evaluating drugs for control.  UN drug control organizations underwent a variety of iterations as new pharmaceutical drugs came to market and natural drugs came under international drug control.  The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is currently the lead UN drug control organization.  UNODC has approximately 350 staff members worldwide.  The Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) is the central policy-making body within the UN system for drug-related matters.  The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is the independent and quasi-judicial control body for the implementation of the United Nations drug conventions.  It was established in 1968 by the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961.  INCB is independent of Governments as well as of the United Nations; its 13 members serve in their personal capacity.