1909 Shanghai Conference

The 1909 Shanghai Conference was the first international conference to address the issue of drugs. Although the resolutions adopted at the conference were nonbinding, it resulted in the Hague Opium Conferences (1912–14) and the adoption of the 1912 International Opium Convention, which, combined with later treaties, restricted opium production and international trade.

The conference, held in Shanghai, China, was known as the International Opium Commission. A number of developments had led to the conference. By the start of the 19th century, opium had been known in China for at least 1,000 years. Throughout the 19th century, the major foreign source of opium in China was India, through the British East India Company.

The Chinese government had taken a number of steps to reduce the illicit use and distribution of opium, but these steps were generally failures. In the middle of the 19th century, the problem came to a head with the First Opium War (1839–42) between China and Great Britain. As a result of this war, China was forced to open her markets to opium and cede Hong Kong to the British.

The opium problem was not limited to China. Throughout the 19th century, the use of opium in the world was growing, and there was very little legal control over its use. The United States was no exception. In the late 19th century, narcotics could even be purchased from mail order catalogues. Opium use was also a serious problem among U.S. immigrants of Chinese descent. The problem was exacerbated when the United States acquired the Philippines in 1898 as a result of the Spanish-American War. In the Philippines, the opium trade was a government-sanctioned monopoly. Starting at the turn of the century, the use of narcotic drugs began to be linked to crime.

During the last decade of the 19th century, a number of international efforts began to grow to curtail the trade in opium. One of major proponents of reform was the Chinese government, which had made a number of petitions to Great Britain to reduce the opium trade. The United States also began to realize that the opium problem in China would hamper the implementation of its Open [Page 586]Door Policy toward the country and curtail the economic development of China.

After the United States acquired the Philippines as a result of the Spanish-American War, it was discovered that there was a significant opium problem in the Philippines. In the attempts to address the problem, the Roosevelt administration sponsored a bill that would have reestablished the monopoly system of opium distribution that had been in use when the Spanish ruled the country. Opposition to the bill was intense. An Opium Commission was then appointed by the Roosevelt administration to study the problem. The result was the eventual prohibition of the importation or use of opium into the United States, except for medicinal purposes, with a gradually implemented system of regulation leading to prohibition in the Philippines.

Despite the governmental actions, the problems with opium continued unabated. Religious missionaries began to get more involved. The opium trade in the Philippines was significantly curtailed through the influence of the newly installed Episcopal Bishop, Charles Henry Brent. Bishop Brent appealed to Roosevelt to initiate an international effort to address the opium problem and involve the major players in the opium trade: the United States, Great Britain, France, Japan, and Holland. Brent persuaded President Theodore Roosevelt to support the organization of an international conference, and when he agreed, the process to organize the conference in Shanghai, China, began. Germany and Siam were added to the list of invitees.

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