Losing wealth or restricting the poison? Changing opium policies in early republican Turkey, 1923-1945

This article examines the shifting opium policies of early republican Turkey and their political consequences. By the turn of the 20th century, the mind-set behind the opium policies had turned towards restriction and selective prohibition, resulting in binding international conventions. The new opium regime framed by these conventions directly affected the young Turkish Republic, one of the foremost opium producing and exporting countries in the world. Due to international political pressure and the economic downturn in the opium market, Turkey radically changed its opium policies in 1933 by enacting a series of laws compatible with international conventions. Although designed as the final solution to the on-going opium problem, execution of this legislation created new tensions. Contrary to the dominant perception among early republican historiographers that the Kemalist state elites functioned as a homogenous entity with few inner conflicts, this article argues that implementation of the opium laws revealed a significant degree of disagreement and controversy among Turkish ruling elites. They were split along policy lines privileging export revenue derived from opium versus adherence to the conventional obligations. While the interwar era witnessed continuous struggles between these two groups and their policy formulations, the outbreak of World War II favoured the economic priorities due to an increased demand for opium to obtain morphine, along with the erosion of the international regulatory basis.