International Opium Commission

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The International Opium Commission was a meeting convened in 1909 in Shanghai that represented one of the first steps toward international drug prohibition. Dr. Hamilton Wright and Episcopal Bishop Charles Henry Brent headed the U.S. delegation. According to Release, "The formal designation of the meeting as 'commission' reflects the fact that the United States had been unsuccessful in its attempts to convene a 'conference': this latter status would have conferred upon the meeting the power to draft regulations to which signatory states would be bound by international law"[1]. The Commission was only authorized to make recommendations.

The meeting united the attending nations behind the cause of opium prohibition, leading to the 1912 International Opium Convention.