The abuse of drugs has been proliferating as a corrosion of social intercourse from the mid-nineteenth century due to the increased availability of products, the expansion of connections, the necessities brought about by changing socio-economic factors, rapid urbanization and changes in attitudes and values. These factors have contributed to a rapid increase in criminality in human society, leading to the exploitation of human society by insidious criminal elements.
As a response to this problem, global control mechanisms have been introduced by the international community – one of which is a regulatory system for the control of illicit transport of narcotic drugs by air. Not only does illicit transportation of narcotics by air per se constitute an offence, but it also leads to other criminal acts related to terrorism such as the destruction of airports by those involved in the carriage of narcotic drugs by air, destruction of property and aircraft resulting from attempts to transport narcotic drugs and the threats posed to traf.c installations.
The need for an international drug control system was .rst felt in 1909 when representatives of 13 States met in Shanghai to discuss the proliferation of instances relating to the transportation of narcotics for non-medical consumption. Further-more, the conference was considered necessary, as by the end of the nineteenth century, opium smoking had become rampant in China, affecting a third of the adult male population. As early as 1729, Emperor Yong Cheng forbade opium smoking in China, which resulted in a decrease in traf.cking. However, this attempt was to little avail, as opium was being smuggled at that time to China through India by the Portuguese and later by the English. The amount of opium that had been smuggled into China had increased from 13 metric tons in 1729 to 64 metric tons in 1767. During the decade 1820–1830 the quantity of drugs brought into China had taken an upward turn to 2,500 metric tons. As a result, China had 20 million opium smokers in 1838. By 1773 the East India Company of England had established a monopoly in the drug trade, thus inaugurating the .rst recorded enterprise involved in legal drug traf.cking on a large scale.485
Today, a wide variety of illicit drugs are traded around the world, the most proli.c being cannabis, which involves an estimated 160 million people. Cannabis production was estimated at 47,000 metric tons in the year 2006. The most important supplier to the European hashish market is Morocco, which delivers 80% of the supply. In addition, Amphetamine type drugs are being abused by 26 million people. It is estimated that the global production of amphetamine and methamphetamine is 300 metric tons. The production of Opium occurs mainly in Afghanistan (notably in all its 34 provinces) and opiate abusers number 16 million,
484Report of the International Conference on Day Abuse and Illicit Traf.cking, Vienna, 17–26
June 1987. United Nations: New York 1987 at 7.
485Bell (1991, p. 2).
B. United Nations Initiatives
and 10 million of them are abusing heroin. The sophistication of heroin production in Europe has grown, making the product purer and the supply richer and more proli.c. It is encouraging that Southeast Asia has, however, reduced its production by 78% since 1996. The United Nations Of.ce of Drug Control opines, in a some-what conservative manner that it is not unrealistic to believe that Southeast Asia may become virtually free of opium production in a few years. This is heartening in the context that the abuse of cocaine involves 13 million people, with a concentra-tion in North America and Western Europe.
It is an understatement to say that the problem of illicit carriage of narcotics is acute today. The illicit carriage of drugs and psychotropic substances, which is a crime per se, invariably gives rise to Narco-terrorism.486
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