The Politics Of Heroin : Cia Complicity In The ... -

The work also connects U.S. policy in Colombia and the Contra war in Nicaragua to the growth of regional cocaine and heroin markets. Controversy and Legacy

Updated editions of the book detail how the CIA-backed Mujahideen in the 1980s transformed Afghanistan into the world's leading opium producer. McCoy asserts that while the U.S. provided arms to fight the Soviets, it ignored the massive heroin trade that sustained these guerrilla forces. The politics of heroin : CIA complicity in the ...

The book traces this pattern across multiple decades and regions, showing how U.S. intervention consistently correlated with surges in drug production: The work also connects U

Using CIA-owned airlines like Air America to transport opium from remote mountainous regions to refineries. McCoy asserts that while the U

In post-WWII Europe, the CIA collaborated with the Corsican Mafia to break the power of communist-led unions on the docks of Marseille, inadvertently allowing the syndicate to establish the "French Connection" heroin pipeline to New York.

McCoy argues that CIA complicity was rarely a matter of agents directly selling drugs. Instead, it was a "coincidental complicity" where the Agency allied with local warlords, political leaders, and criminal syndicates who used the drug trade to finance their own activities. In exchange for their anti-communist loyalty, the CIA provided these allies with:

The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade is a seminal work by historian that explores the intersection of U.S. foreign policy, covert operations, and the global narcotics trade. First published in 1972 as The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia , the book was the first to provide meticulous documentation of how the CIA and other U.S. government entities facilitated drug trafficking to achieve Cold War geopolitical goals. Core Argument: Strategic Complicity