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

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.

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 ...

Upon its initial 1972 release, the CIA attempted to suppress the book's publication by pressuring the publisher, Harper & Row, to allow the Agency to review and "correct" the manuscript. The publisher eventually proceeded after McCoy refused to make significant changes. Updated editions of the book detail how the

Covert funds were sometimes funneled to paramilitary groups deeply embedded in opium production. Key Geographical Focus Areas McCoy argues that CIA complicity was rarely a

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