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Opium use on the island Java, Indonesia. (Photo: Tropical Museum)
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Marcel de
Kort, author of a history of drug policy in the Netherlands, says this country
was never keen on using repressive measures.
"[The
Dutch] always had their doubts about the international approach of prohibition.
Already in the 1920s they called the US approach 'destructive idealism.' "
Profit
motive
At the time
of the opium convention, Dutch doubts about prohibition were fueled by money.
The international drug trade was big business. The trade in opium and morphine
had been steadily expanding during the second half of the 19th century. Germany,
the United Kingdom and France were all profiting - but none held a candle to
the Netherlands.
Plantations
on Java gave the Dutch East India company a commanding position in the market,
and they reported a profit of 26 million guilders from opium in 1914 before the
convention had taken effect.* Cocaine also proved to be a lucrative business
for at least one Dutch company which sold the drug to both sides during World
War I.
So if the
drug trade was such good business, why did the Netherlands host the 1912
convention in the first place? Marcel Kort says the Dutch decided, 'if you
can’t beat them, join them.' Active participation in what was considered an
unwelcome but inevitable development would do more to help protect Dutch
economic interests than more stalling.
Delaying
tactics
The Hague
almost missed out. The United States, backed by China, had been trying for
three years to get the major players to agree to a treaty, but European powers
kept putting it off. But an American physician - the main force behind the
convention - finally had enough. Upon hearing of yet another delay, the doctor
tracked down the vacationing Dutch ambassador in a remote area in the state of
Maine and sternly instructed him to set a date for the convention. Otherwise,
the doctor threatened, he'd organise the event himself in Washington, DC. The
plan worked and after six weeks of face-to-face haggling, the first
international treaty regulating drugs was signed in the Netherlands.
Turning
point
The
Netherlands and other European powers did manage to water down the 1912
convention, keeping the emphasis on regulating trade, rather than prohibiting
drug use altogether. The deal covered four drugs - opium, morphine, cocaine and
heroin. It did not regulate synthetic drugs, thanks to lobbying by the
German-dominated pharmaceutical industry.
Implementation
of the agreement was stalled until after World War I, but then it was included
in the Treaty Of Versailles that ended the war. This mean that, in one fell
swoop, 60 countries were bound by the convention rather than just the original
13.
In addition
to regulating international trade, the convention also required all signatories
to pass domestic legislation controlling drug use.
One hundred
years of bickering
The
diplomatic bickering about regulation versus prohibition which began with the
1912 convention negotiations has continued ever since. The United States walked
out of a 1925 conference on the grounds that it wouldn’t be tough enough, and
it wasn’t until 1961 that the US finally succeeded in pushing through a more
prohibitive treaty.
The United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, established in 1997, adopted the
zero-tolerance policy favoured by the United States. Dutch drugs policy today
is still slanted towards regulation, but a number of measures have been adopted
recently which tend more towards prohibition.
Ironically,
as the Netherlands seems to be backpedaling on its liberal approach, a number
of other countries are turning to policies which deal with drug-use as a public
health and social welfare problem rather than a criminal one. And an
increasingly loud chorus of voices from the scientific, political and social
spheres are declaring that the war on drugs has been lost and it's time
zero-tolerance was traded in for tolerance-under-strict-conditions.
* figure
from Economic Histories of the Opium Trade, by Siddharth Chandra, University of
Pittsburgh
To read
more about the history of drug control, check out the Transnational Institute's
article, The development of international drug control.
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