The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is the principal organization through which the United Nations (UN) seeks to coordinate and deliver a set of global programs and responses to drug use and crime.

The UNODC was formed in 1997 through the merger of the UN Drug Control Programme and the Centre for International Crime. As such, the UNODC represents the current manifestation of transnational responses to illicit drug use that commenced with the creation of the League of [Page 803]Nations Opium Advisory Committee (1919) and developed through the international conventions agreed in 1925, 1931, and 1936.

After World War II, the drug control functions of the League of Nations passed to the UN, which enacted further conventions with the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic ...