The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade

This book spells out the CIA's involvement with Heroin smuggling since WWII. The book basically connects the CIA to drug trafficking in both the Gold Triangle of Southeast Asia and the Taliban Triangle in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I guess that the US was broke after World War II so we stooped to funding our intelligence operations with drug money. <br /> <br />This is a great book if you don't mind a real life trip down the rabbit hole. Take the blue pill and hold on!

Hard to refute this massively documented solidly researched book. This is a MUST READ for anyone trying to weave together the enormous task of trying to understanding the world drug trade. Ditto for all of the other positive reviewers.

This is quite a detailed and academic reference that no college student should be without. I have been out of graduate school for over 10 years and it took me nearly 2 weeks to complete and comprehend the facts of the book. There are just so many places and names in the book that one can easily get lost and confused. Nevertheless, the author gives the reader and complete history of the heroin trade starting with 19th century opium production and use in China to present day heroin production, distribution, and consumption that is coming out of Afghanistan. I highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to really understand why we are losing the War on Drugs. You want to know the truth about the drug trade? Then this is the book for you.

Professor Alfed McCoy has here rendered a very important contribution to the overall understanding of United States policy in the post-World War II era. This thoroughly documented and well written text illustrates CIA complicity in the narcotics trade from the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia, to the mountains of Afghanistan, and finally to the highlands of the Andes. Other authors who write of CIA complicity in various nefarious deeds seem to cite this important work more than any other. <br /> <br />One might argue that the level of detail, particularly wtih regard to the various machinations of the KMT army and various sects within Burma, Thailand, and Laos is a little much for the general reader. However, in acknowledging this, we can only assert that this is an observation rather a criticism. McCoy's book is an excellent source. The writing, as previously mentioned, is excellent, and the conclusions terribly important. Read it. And be both well informed, and frankly disturbed in the process. Well done, Dr. McCoy!