Afghanistan sources 90% of the world’s heroin, contributing significantly to the large number of heroin addicts in the United States. William Edstrom reports that heroin use is projected to account for the deaths of 165,000 Americans over the next ten years—and that the CIA bears responsibility for them.
Since the 1970s, CIA operatives have smuggled heroin from Afghanistan to the U.S., flooding the domestic marked with enough heroin to produce over 2,000,000 heroin addicts.
Afghanistan became the number one leading producer of opium and heroin in the 1970s. The CIA trained and armed Taliban fighters to resist the Soviet Union it invaded Afghanistan in 1979. This caused a drug war whose effects continued long after the conflict itself.
Today, Edstrom writes, “Most heroin in the US comes from US-occupied Afghanistan.” From 2001 to 2014, opium production in Afghanistan increased from 7,600 hectares of land to 224,000 hectares. During that same time US heroin deaths rose from 1,779 (2001) to 10,574 (2014).
In 2006, the Los Angeles Times covered the topic of Afghanistan’s opium and heroin. Garret Therolf’s story described the rise of heroin coming into the U.S. from Afghanistan and the corresponding rise in the number of heroin-related deaths. However, this story did not address how the heroin reached the U.S. By contrast, Edstrom pinpoints the blame on the CIA, and argues that it is within the power of the U.S. government—and, specifically, President Obama—to stop the flow of opium and heroin from Afghanistan to the United States, though they choose not to.
Source: William Edstrom, “Heroin Dealer in Chief,” Pravda, December 29, 2015, http://www.pravdareport.com/society/stories/29-12-2015/132958-heroin-0/. [Reposted at Global Research, January 21, 2016, http://www.globalresearch.ca/heroin-dealer-in-chief-afghanistan-source-of-90-of-the-worlds-heroin/5502813].
Student Researcher: Rubi Carrazco (Citrus College)
Faculty Evaluator: Andy Lee Roth (Citrus College)