The Politics of Heroin in South‐east Asia
2002; Wiley; Volume: 97; Issue: 12 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1046/j.1360-0443.2002.00285.x
ISSN1360-0443
Autores Tópico(s)Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
ResumoAddictionVolume 97, Issue 12 p. 1615-1616 Free Access The Politics of Heroin in South-east Asia First published: 11 December 2002 https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1360-0443.2002.00285.xCitations: 1AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Alfred W. McCoy with Cathleen B. Read & Leonard P. Adams II, The Politics of Heroin in South-east Asia.New York, Harper and Row, 1972 Alfred McCoy was, according to the dust jacket of this 1972 book published by Harper and Row, studying for a PhD in South-east Asian history at Yale. His co-authors were also studying for doctorates. McCoy had, however, already edited a volume on Laotian history and politics and had published other articles. He has published other books since, but none quite as well known as this one. The book appeared when the Vietnam War was increasingly unpopular in the USA and when Richard Nixon was standing for re-election as president. The text, for those who do not know it, details (and it does detail) the complex history of the drug trade and its expansion in South-east Asia after the Second World War. McCoy shows how, all along the way, legitimate Governments—first the French in Indo-China and later the Americans in Vietnam and elsewhere—colluded with or actively promoted the opium trade, despite opposing it in public. Why? Because profits from opium were the price to be paid for political alliances, the support of Kuomintang troops in the Shan States, or anti-Communist forces in South Vietnam. The alliance between the Meo in North-east Laos and the CIA was cemented when Air America planes flew their opium out of Laos. McCoy showed how in wartime Europe the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) had worked with the Mafia, which returned to power on the back of the allied invasion of Sicily. The return of ‘Lucky’ Luciano, the Mafia boss, in 1946 saw the re-establishment of supply networks leading from Turkey through Italy to Marseilles. It was the decline of Turkish opium production from the late 1960s—under US pressure—that saw the expansion of the South-east Asian trade and production in the Golden Triangle. I can remember reading this book soon after I came into the field. I was working on the history of opium and other drugs in England in the 19th century. Clearly, opium had its international dimension in the period I was interested in, and import/export statistics for the drug were one of the historical primary sources I was using. Everyone knew about the Indian opium trade with China. I was already aware that, in the early 20th century, opiates had become subject to an overarching system of international control that strictly defined the difference between medical and non-medical use and put in place a system of import and export certification, of trade regulation. One of the prime movers for this international system had been the USA, which had pressed for at least a regional system since the days of the Shanghai Opium Commission in the early 1900s. How the British Foreign Office civil servants had cynically sneered at the missionary enthusiasm, and dubious motives, of the Americans! Later I found out why: the USA had been involved in the opium trade earlier in the 19th century, only adopting a high moral stance when this meshed with its strategic and economic priorities at the turn of the century. What McCoy seemed to demonstrate was that this history of wider political strategies entangled with opium had continued throughout the century, and had become particularly marked with the restructuring of both the trade and strategic alliances after the Second World War. The drug trade and international drug control was at the epicentre of a much bigger political picture. The overt aim of reducing drug production was also accompanied by a covert US involvement in the continuance of the trade based on political objectives. This difference between the surface and what was going on beneath appealed to an historian's questioning stance and in-built refusal to take things at face value. It also added a dimension to the 19th-century work: was this what that innocent opium tippling had led to? It was rather thrilling to be researching a topic that had such dangerous international implications. Later on, there were to be other connections, when researchers who had carried out anthropological work in South-east Asia, with others who had been involved in moves to buy up and destroy the whole local opium crop, also turned their attention to historical studies. Clearly, even historical research could be political—another useful lesson. Re-reading the book for this review, my enthusiasm for it was initially more muted. The style is very much of its period. This is investigative journalism: some will remember those detailed Sunday newspaper exposés of the time. Often the wood gets lost for the trees as McCoy feeds in another anecdote. The book could have done with some careful editing and a more coherent analytical line. That often gets lost in the thickets of detail. McCoy is clearly in love with his material, a common failing of many social scientists and historians. I noticed, more than before, his reliance on supply-side explanations of the spread of drug use. McCoy's argument is that the South-east Asian heroin trade developed because of US intervention in the area; because of corrupt national Governments, supported by the USA; and because of international criminal syndicates. The withdrawal of drug-taking US troops from Vietnam meant that more heroin came into the USA. So American power politics in Asia rebounded in a big way at home. Supply created markets rather than demand—not an argument all would agree with. Nor would everyone completely agree with his overall picture. McCoy's depiction of Luciano and the re-establishment of the European illicit trade has recently been disputed in an analysis that suggests he was over-reliant on Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) propaganda (Meyer & Parssinen 1998). The FBN had its own interest in portraying the trade in the grip of one ‘Mr Big’. Experts on Laos have disagreed with some of his conclusions (Westermeyer 1982). But McCoy is basically writing contemporary history, with a journalistic slant. Since I first read the book, my historical interests have extended to writing this type of history too, and I know how difficult it can be. McCoy has very interesting material, not least his interviews with key participants. These include Col. Roger Trinquier, who masterminded ‘Operation X’, the French involvement in the opium trade in the early 1950s. Here is contemporary history, albeit flawed, as it always is. McCoy was clearly less at home with the US domestic situation. His prediction that returning addicted servicemen would be ‘socially infectious’ was to be confounded by events. This book was written and published just as the domestic treatment programme, also connected with the Nixon Government, was getting under way. Given these criticisms, why was the book my choice for the ‘classics’ series? Other people have researched since then on the development of the drug trade; there has been a recent spate of books on international drug control and related topics (Berridge 2001). The historical consensus would be that there was indeed a fundamental restructuring of the trade after the Second World War, accompanied by a new US domination of international control machinery (McAllister 2000). But McCoy's book was the first to detail the political importance of narcotics in the post-war world and the connection with strategic issues of power politics. It makes the overall point that drug policy is about much more than just drug control and that things are not always as they seem. It encourages a healthy dose of cynicism. Maybe that seems self-evident now in the 21st century. Most days, my drug policy e-mail network brings me news reports about Colombian cocaine and US involvement in South America. Tobacco seems to be following the same route, and the recent politics of the Afghan opium crop have brought echoes of Vietnam. Yet the general awareness of the international political complexities of these issues is still low, despite the increased public discussion of drug policy. Perhaps we need a contemporary McCoy to research and analyse them. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author acknowledges the advice of Jerome H. Jaffe and Joseph Westermeyer during the preparation of the review. Neither bears any responsibility for its content. Reviewed by VIRGINIA BERRIDGE London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine London UK E-mail: virginia.berridge@lshtm.ac.uk REFERENCES Berridge, V. (2001) Illicit drugs and internationalism: the forgotten dimension. Medical History, 45, 282– 288.Google Scholar McAllister, W. B. (2000) Drug Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century. London: Routledge. Google Scholar Meyer, K. & Parssinen, T. (1998) Webs of Smoke: Smugglers, Warlords, Spies and the History of the International Drug Trade. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Google Scholar Westermeyer, J. (1982) Poppies, Pipes and People. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Google Scholar Citing Literature Volume97, Issue12December 2002Pages 1615-1616 ReferencesRelatedInformation
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