The Convention for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs was signed in Geneva in 1931. This international treaty required signatory countries to produce detailed drug consumption statistics and limited the production of narcotics to quantities required for medical and research purposes, establishing a framework for international drug control that would be expanded upon in later decades.

The 1931 Geneva Convention is a key document in the history of international drug control, and its provisions have been referenced in legal and literary discussions of drug policy. The treaty's attempt to regulate the global drug trade has been examined in the works of historians and political writers, while poets have used its language of control and prohibition as a metaphor for broader societal constraints.