The CIA and the War on Drugs

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THE FIX:
Thursday 21 July @ 21:29:55
The CIA and the War on Drugs

by Ed Felien

Preface

The British East India Company exercised monopoly control of the growing of opium in India and its transport and importation to China as early as 1750. Chinese Emperors objected. They issued edicts against its use. Foreign traders were ordered to surrender their opium in 1839. The British sent in warships, beginning the First Opium War. In 1841 the British defeated the Chinese. The Chinese had to pay a large indemnity and surrender Hong Kong. A little later some Chinese threw chests of opium into the sea in imitation of the American Revolution. The British were not amused. The British and French renewed hostilities toward the Chinese, beginning the Second Opium War. The British won large indemnities and the importation of opium was legalized in 1856.

As early as 1800 the British Levant Company was purchasing opium in Turkey for importation to the U. S. Smuggling was the sport of the ruling class in the first years of the 19th century. In 1805 Charles Cabot (of the Boston Cabots) was involved in trade from the British to the Chinese, and John Jacob Astor purchased 10 tons of opium in Turkey to sell to the Chinese. A lot of that opium found its way to America, either directly through importation to New York City or through the immigration of Chinese and consequent opium dens in San Francisco.

Heroin was invented by Heinrich Dreser in 1895 while working for Bayer Drug Company. Bayer introduced it as a substitute for morphine. By 1903 heroin addiction had risen to alarming rates. By 1924 heroin was made illegal and the black market and the underworld were born.

In the early years of the 20th century, Corsican gangsters purchased opium from Turkey and from Burma through the French colony of Vietnam. They refined it in Marseilles, making it into heroin, and they brought it to New York to be distributed by the Mafia.


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http://pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=1949

[wli]

1. collaborating with Klaus Barbie in 1980

See? We're dealing with Real Nazis (TM).