Throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s an opiate epidemic swept through Egypt, claiming nearly four percent of its population and precipitating a local response that shaped the development of global drug policy, control, and treatment. The Egyptian medical establishment reacted to this public health emergency by conducting a number of groundbreaking studies on addiction and rehabilitation, which uncovered, for example, the previously unknown connection between intravenous drug use and the spread of disease. Likewise, Egyptian security agencies approached the epidemic as a crisis in public order, developing a wealth of innovative anti-narcotics strategies and pioneering the use of new technologies to combat drug trafficking, such as metal detectors and tire deflation devices. As the United States, Western Europe, and East Asia all responded to similar, though less dramatic, increases in drug trafficking and consumption during the interwar period, this research spread across the globe, informed national security and public health discourse, and transformed Egyptian officials into narcotics experts. In recent decades, historians have challenged the centrality of the United States and Western Europe in the narrative of drug history. This paper adds to a growing body of scholarship focusing on the contributions of non-Western states in defining the trajectory of drug control and treatment in the twentieth century. Alongside the global influence of Egyptian narcotics expertise, this work also examines its local impact. In particular, it demonstrates how the prominent role that Egyptian research and representatives played in drug policy debates at the League of Nations fueled the country's growth as a regional diplomatic force. Simultaneously, this participation strengthened the position of Egyptian bureaucrats and politicians in their efforts to overcome the stringent fiscal austerity of the semi-colonial Egyptian state, build enforcement institutions like the Central Narcotics Intelligence Bureau, and provide public health services such as treatment for drug addiction. This work draws on Egyptian police documents, League of Nations archives, and US State Department records, as well as the memoirs of administrators, doctors, and public health officials involved in the exchange of narcotics knowledge. Using these sources, it follows the diffusion of drug addiction, suppression, and rehabilitation research from Cairo to Geneva, New York, and beyond. Combining global and local approaches to modern Middle Eastern history, this paper illuminates the profound impact of Egyptian narcotics expertise on international drug policy, regional diplomacy, and national institutional development in twentieth century Egypt.