6 - Dividing Up the Global Licit Market, 1948–1953

Summary

This chapter tells the largely untold story of the political economy of international drug regulation in the 1950s. It will tell the story of producer country efforts, led by Turkey, Iran and India, to agree an international quota system for opium and thus to divide up the licit global market. It examines the simultaneous efforts to suppress the global illicit market and minimise the numbers of producers to a small select few who would enjoy an enforced oligopoly. It highlights the quiet diplomatic pressure placed on countries viewed as epicentres of the global trade and a conscious ignorance of strategically important states – for example the US State Department refusing to criticise French Indochina and Mexico. Further, it tells the story of Harry Anslinger’s efforts to incorrectly portray Communist China as the world’s leading narcostate. It concludes with a look at the breakdown of multilateralism over the 1953 Opium Protocol, a treaty which few accepted but was rammed through by the US and some select allies. It was this Protocol which ultimately galvanised moderates and producer states around the need for a Single Convention to roll back the excesses of the 1953 Protocol.