REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS
SINGLE CONVENTION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS
INTERIM AGREEMENT TO LIMIT THE PRODUCTION OF OPIUM TO MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEEDS
OFFER FOR SALE IN HONG KONG OF FIVE HUNDRED TONS OF OPIUM AT PRESENT IN CHINA
Pages: 45 to 46
Creation Date: 1951/01/01
In view of the interest presented by the resolutions recommended to the Economic and Social Council and which this organ adopted in their original or amended form, the editors of the Bulletin on Narcotics decided to present these resolutions in extenso in the Official part of the Bulletin.
The Economic and Social Council
Takes note of the report of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs on its fifth session.
The Economic and Social Council
Approvesthe plans prepared by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs for the further elaboration during 1951 and the early part of 1952 of the single convention on narcotic drugs; and
Reaffirmsthe authorization given by its resolution 315 (XI) to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to request the Secretary-General, if the Commission should so desire, to transmit the draftinstrument to governments for their comments after making such amendments thereto as it shall have seen fit.
The Economic and Social Council,
Having considered the efforts of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and its committees during the years 1949 and 1950 to achieve an effective limitation of opium production to that required for medical and scientific needs,
Being fully aware of the problems involved in this new measure for the more effective control of narcotic drugs, and of the gratifying progress the Commission has already made towards solving them,
Urgesthe Commission to make every possible effort during its sixth session to find a basis acceptable to the governments principally concerned on which an international agreement to limit the production of opium to medical and scientific needs could be formulated.
The Economic and Social Council,
Taking into account the present efforts of a number of States to conclude an interim agreement to limit the production of opium to medical and scientific needs,
Consideringthat China had prohibited the cultivation of the opium poppy and had declared that it did not wish to export opium,
Consideringthat the draft of the said interim agreement, the general principles of which were approved by the Joint Committee of the Principal Opium-producing Countries and of the Principal Drug-manufacturing Countries during the first part of its first session held in August 1950, is based on the assumption that China will continue to prohibit the cultivation of the opium poppy and the export of opium,
Viewswith concern the offer for export of five hundred tons of opium at present in China to which reference is made in document E/CN.7/211; and
Requeststhe organs entrusted under the international treaties with the control of narcotic substances to ascertain, if possible, the origin of this opium, the period in which it was collected, the total stocks of opium at present in China and whether the cultivation of the opium poppy and the export of opium are still prohibited in China.
Professor Joseph Perkins Chamberlain
Professor Joseph Perkins Chamberlain, an outstanding figure in international law, who always had a marked interest in the field of international control of drugs, died on 21 May 1951. He was born in 1873, educated at Harvard, at the University of California, etc. He was Ph.D. and LL.D. (Columbia University, Western Reserve University, and University of California).
Admitted to the California Bar in 1902, he practised law in San Francisco from 1902 to 1905 and was lecturer on law at the University of California School of Juris-prudence (1907-1908). He then held various posts in which his ability as a scholar and a man of practical vision attracted attention. He was a member of the Legislative Drafting Research Fund (Columbia, 1909) and Director (1918); Professor of Public Law (Columbia, 1933); Member of the High Commissariat for German Refugees (1933-1935); Chairman of the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service; Chairman of the American Council ofLearned Societies; Chairman of the American Bar Association; George Eastman Professor at Oxford University and Consultant for the US Department of State.
He published many erudite books and articles among which an Index Digest of State Constitutions (1915); Régime of the International Rivers: Danube and Rhine (1923); the Judicial Function in Federal Administrative Agencies (1942).
The Editors of the Bulletin take the liberty of reproducing part of a letter from the Director of the Division of Narcotic Drugs addressed to Professor Chamberlain's sister, conveying to her the feeling of all those who knew and appreciated him.
"You may perhaps know that one of his most long-standing interests was the struggle against the social evils of addiction to narcotic drugs, and it was in connexion with the international aspect of this work that I first met him in 1932 at Geneva. Ever since that time his wise counsel, stemming from a very deep knowledge and full appreciation of the problem raised by the international control of narcotics, was always available to me for the asking.
"Your brother was never a man to seek the lime-light, being content with painstaking, thorough work in the background and often leaving it to lesser men to take credit that was really his; and it is not yet generally recognized how greatly, as Chairman of the Opium Committee of the Foreign Policy Association, he influenced the American policy which led in large measure to the establishment of the régime for the control of narcotics that now exists throughout the world . . .
"To all of us who are engaged in the international control of narcotic drugs, his death will mean a great loss; to me personally it will mean also the end of a greatly valued friendship. May I convey to you my deepest sympathy . . ."