Greg - I'm not sure anyone should bother to respond.. the main allegation is not that the CIA is involved in drug trafficking but that it turned a blind eye to the involvement of others in it.. um, its the CIA not the Drug Enforcement Agency or the FBI.. its not a police agency as such and has no police powers (forget the fiction, look at what it does).. then the article leaps from that into saying its core business is in drug smuggling and gun smuggling.. sorry, what?

You then drag in Nugan Hand, which collapsed in 1980 (more than 30 years ago). There were allegations of CIA involvement in Nugan Hand and it certainly hired a former official or two but its difficult to see just how the organisation could have been seriously involved with that bunch of nuts - if the CIA had been involved at least it would have been better funded.

My recollection of that publicity when the journalist you mentioned committed suicide was that even his fellow journalists had written him off as a nut. So should you.

Given the revelations of Edward Snowden, the whole world knows that America cannot be trusted to tell the truth or has any understanding of the meaning of words like: integrity, honesty, ethics, peace, fair-go, turn the other cheek, etc.

Instead of telling people to forget about America's misdeeds, the whole of the U.S. should be put under the microscope and its constant, nefarious, sadistic, barbaric, imperialist behaviour roundly condemned!

Let's shine a bright light on America, show just what an evil, barbaric nation it is rather than listen to its torrents of duplicitous propaganda.

Agree with a very well informed Curmedgeon.
Apart from that and in reference to drugs.
How's the 80 year old war on drugs going?
Are we winning?
How many billions or trillions have been spent thus far?
Could this money have been spent more wisely, combating the very reasons that drugs are so seductive?
Or that for some communities, few if any other choices to escape enduring generational poverty are on offer!
How many hundreds of thousands of lives have been sacrificed thus far fighting it?
And is that how anyone in their right mind measures success?
Are addicts using less?
Or have they switched to much more harmful drugs, when the authorities have briefly, successfully created a heroin drought?
And or, are or prison populations going down?
Are law enforcement agencies freer now to concentrate their often overwhelmed/overworked or modest resources on capital crime?
What is the evidence saying with regard to some of the less harmful drugs being legalized or decriminalized, in other more sanely lead places; or where addiction is treated as a medical problem, rather than a crime?
Are there more or less crimes and or brutal assaults, break and enter and the like?
And what has a legalized market done to the cash flows of illegal drug barons, and the power and "official" influence that allegedly buys/bought?
Well?
Rhrosty.

Greg, a very important article. I was particularly glad that you referred to Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott. McCoy's book has been reprinted umpteen times with updates that make it as relevant today as when it was first published.

Scott has also been a pioneer in showing the linkages between drug trafficking and the CIA, in Colombia, Mexico, Vietnam, the so-called golden Triangle in SE Asia and Afghanistan where they resurrected the heroin traffic after it had been all but closed down by the Taliban.

Afghan heroin is shipped out to Camp Bond Steel in Kosovo where it is then distributed through Europe. This was noted in a Council of Europe report that stated, inter alia, that the Kosovo government was essentially a criminal enterprise. You would be surprised how few times Camp Bond Steel, the largest military facility in Europe, is even mentioned in the Australian media.

Unsurprisingly a couple of the commenters on this site, and no doubt their fellow travellers in due course, want to dismiss this as all ancient history. They need to wake up to the reality of the world we live in. As the UN Drug Agency noted only two years ago, most of the US's major banks survived the recession because of the huge profits they made from laundering drug money. The Bank of Wachovia was a rare example of a prosecution, although the fine, measured against the profits, was derisory.

James - you are in a fantasy world.. an entertaining one and good one in which to write thrillers, but a fantasy one none the less.. there have been allegations from the 1960s-1970s that the CIA turned a blind eye to aspects of the heroin trade due to the politics of the time, but actively involved? But who am I to spoil these fantasies..

In South America the largest US military presence is in Columbia. Columbia also happens to be one of the major sources of South American marijuana and cocaine, much of which makes its way up to the US.
In the Middle East the largest US military presence in is Afghanistan. Afghanistan also happens to be one of the major sources of Middle Eastern heroine, much of which makes its way into Europe and, especially, Russia.
Historically the connection between the US military and heroine coming out of the Golden Triangle during the Viet War is too well known to be allowed any credible denial.
Finally, movie critic David Carr writing in the NT Times has endorsed the movie Kill the Messenger which tells the story of how reporter Gary Webb was hounded unto suicide by a vengeful MSM for daring to suggest that Ronald "The Gripper" Regan's presidency was a time of cocaine dealing by the "President's Army", the CIA. It is a day late and a dollar short for Gary Webb, but the truth does eventually come out - something the current crop of mendacious spooks operating within the Beltway and protected by a compliant MSM might do well to remember.