Drug smuggling

DEEP HISTORY AND THE GLOBAL DRUG CONNECTION, PART 5: CIA IN LATIN AMERICA

Here is yet another fact that is so alien to our normal view of reality that I myself find it hard to keep in mind: US backdoor covert foreign policy has been the largest single cause of the illicit drugs flooding the world today.

It is worth contemplating for a moment the legacy of CIA-supported drug proxies in just two areas — the Golden Triangle and the Golden Crescent. In 2003, according to the United Nations, these two areas accounted for 91 percent of the area devoted to illicit opium production and 95 percent of the estimated product in metric tons. [Add in Colombia and Mexico, two other countries where the CIA has worked with drug traffickers, and the four areas accounted for 96.6 percent of the growing area and 97.8 percent of the estimated product.(52)]

The CIA’s covert operations were not the sole cause for this flood of opium and heroin. But the de facto protection conferred on sectors of the opium trade by CIA involvement is clearly a major historical factor for the world crime scourge today.