During the Vietnam War, the CIA supported Hmong tribesmen in Laos and South Vietnamese officials who were heavily involved in the opium trade. This led to a heroin epidemic among U.S. soldiers serving in Vietnam, with estimates suggesting up to 15% were users by 1971.
Covert funds were sometimes funneled to paramilitary groups deeply embedded in opium production. Key Geographical Focus Areas
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. The politics of heroin : CIA complicity in the ...
Using CIA-owned airlines like Air America to transport opium from remote mountainous regions to refineries.
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 During the Vietnam War, the CIA supported Hmong
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
The book traces this pattern across multiple decades and regions, showing how U.S. intervention consistently correlated with surges in drug production: Covert funds were sometimes funneled to paramilitary groups
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.