The Rolleston Report of 1926 helped to establish British policy toward OPIATES, COCAINE, and other drugs. It institutionalized a drug policy in which medical expertise and public-health considerations were given importance along with punishment and criminal penalties. The British policies were, in this sense, different from U.S. policies toward drugs that emerged during the same period and in response to similar international agreements. The historical background leading to the formation of an elite committee of British physicians, chaired by Sir Humphrey Rolleston, had four major phases.

Ending the Commercial Opium Trade

During the nineteenth century, the British established commercial opium trading by fighting and winning two Opium Wars with China: Opium grown and sold by monopoly in British-dominated India provided a quarter of the revenue for the British government in India. Prepared opium (for smoking) was exported to Chinese ports...