The primary objective of the convention was to introduce restrictions on exports; it did not entail any prohibition or criminalisation of the uses and cultivation of opium poppy, the coca plant, or cannabis.
[7][8] It introduced a statistical control system to be supervised by a Permanent Central Opium Board, a body partly linked to the League of Nations.
Egypt, with support from Italy and South Africa, recommended that measures of control be extended beyond opium and cocaine derivatives, to hashish.
A sub-committee was created, and proposed the following text: The use of Indian hemp and the preparations derived therefrom may only be authorized for medical and scientific purposes.
The raw resin (charas), however, which is extracted from the female tops of the cannabis sativa L, together with the various preparations (hashish, chira, esrar, diamba, etc.)