The Dark Truths Behind the US War on Drugs That Mainstream Media Ignores
While the war on drugs targets everyday people, it ignores the activities of the rich and powerful. Both political parties and our media system do very little to hold these shadowy forces accountable.
At WantToKnow.info, we pull back the curtain on the hidden forces shaping our world. We transcend partisan politics by investigating the deeper forces that have corrupted both political parties and all aspects of government. Our work asks the crucial questions that mainstream media conveniently ignores—questions that, if tackled, could bridge our seemingly insurmountable differences.
Nowhere is this more evident than with the US government’s mishandling of the war on drugs. It’s a trillion-dollar fiasco that’s impacted almost everyone, and we all share a desire to address and heal this tragic problem.
Violent overpolicing and mass incarceration resulted in fractured social networks and families, damaging trust in government and destroying economic opportunities in communities across the country. In other words, the war on drugs itself destroyed the conditions necessary for healthy people and communities. In fact, mass incarceration has had no measurable impact on drug crime.
Many of us know about the opioid epidemic, yet too few realize how the DEA and Congress turned a blind eye to the powerful corporations who operated like a drug cartel and profited from countless opioid deaths. When the CIA was experimenting drugs on unsuspecting people in its infamous MKULTRA program, it enlisted a former federal narcotics agent named George White to run Operation Midnight Climax. In a letter to his former employer reflecting on his career, White is quoted as saying, "It was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill and cheat, steal, deceive, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the all highest."
While the war on drugs targets everyday people, this war ignores the activities of the rich and powerful. Both political parties and our media system do very little to hold these shadowy forces accountable.
The Stark Reality of the War on Drugs
Honduras
Honduras’s former president Juan Orlando Hernández was recently sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking. US Attorney General Merrick Garland made it clear that Hernández abused his power to run the country as a narco-state, giving drug traffickers free rein and leaving both Honduras and the US to suffer the consequences. Yet what wasn’t made clear to the public was Washington’s long-running complicity in his crimes. Beginning with the backing of an illegal and brutal military coup that egregiously violated human rights in 2009, the US government—under both Democratic and Republican administrations—supported Hernández for years, funneling aid to his military and police forces while turning a blind eye to his deep involvement in drug trafficking, election fraud, and human rights abuses.
The U.S. poured millions into counternarcotics aid that trained and equipped police and military forces that brutally suppressed the population. Hernández’s director of the Honduran police was trained and educated at the School of the Americas at Fort Moore, Georgia (now known as The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), which graduated more than 500 human rights abusers from all over the world.
Hernández protected US interests in the region and the US propped him up as a “warrior against drugs” for years. Under Hernández’s reign, Honduras was plagued by widespread violence and instability, forcing many citizens to flee towards the US. It was only after Hernández lost power, and his ability to safeguard U.S. interests waned, that he was extradited to the U.S. and sentenced for his crimes against humanity.
Mexico
Since 2018, the Council on Foreign Relations estimates that over thirty thousand people have died each year due to violence from drug cartels and human rights violations committed by Mexico in its war against organized crime. At first glance, the cartels appear to be winning this dirty war on drugs. Yet the biggest winners operate from the shadows. Massive banks like HSBC and Wachovia (now part of Wells Fargo) were caught laundering billions for these murderous drug gangs. None of these financial giants faced criminal prosecution and were instead fined a trivial sum.
While the US pumped billions into Mexican law enforcement and military to fight organized crime, US agencies allowed the Sinaloa drug cartel to carry out its operations from 2000 to 2012 in exchange for intel on rival cartels without Mexican oversight. Court documents reveal that DEA agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, and Department of Justice prosecutors were authorized by the U.S. to meet with drug traffickers in Mexico, offering to have charges against cartel members dropped in the US. During this period, the Sinaloa cartel's power surged. Violence, human trafficking, and drug smuggling rose to unprecedented levels in Mexico. As the original Mexican investigation stated, the US implemented a strategy “with little concern for the loss of lives in both Mexico and the U.S., or for the ongoing drug trafficking into the U.S. or its consumption.”
Afghanistan
In the 1980s, the U.S. allied with opium traffickers in Afghanistan during Operation Cyclone, providing the mujahideen with training and missiles to fight the Soviet Union. By the end of Operation Cyclone, Afghanistan’s opium production had surged twenty-fold. Despite a successful ban on opium cultivation by the Taliban in 2000, which drastically reduced production, Afghanistan again became the world's largest source of heroin after the U.S. invasion in 2001. By the end of the war, opium production, drug addiction, and the flow of drug money had reached unprecedented levels, despite costly and ineffective anti-drug efforts.
Bolivia, Nicaragua and the Contras
“In my 30 year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA. — Dennis Dayle, former chief of an elite DEA enforcement unit
25-year DEA veteran Michael Levine headed a unit investigating major drug operations beginning in the 70s. He discovered that the CIA and State Department were sabotaging cases that threatened to reveal the truth behind the massive amounts of drugs flowing into the US. He alleges that the CIA obstructed his efforts to destroy a heroin factory in Thailand responsible for smuggling massive amounts of heroin into the US within the bodies and body bags of soldiers killed in Vietnam while uncovering how the CIA’s Air America was used to smuggle drugs into the US. Levine also traced the origins of the crack epidemic to the 1980 CIA-backed coup in Bolivia, where Bolivia’s democratically elected president, Lydia Taheda, was overthrown by mercenaries and military officials tied to the country's largest cocaine trafficker.
Journalist Gary Webb's 'Dark Alliance' series in 1996 linked the tragic crack cocaine epidemic in California's black communities to the Contras, a Latin American guerrilla army supported by the CIA. The Contras were armed and funded by the U.S. in an attempt to overthrow Nicaragua's left-wing Sandinista government, which was seen as a threat to American capitalism.
Mainstream newspapers largely ignored the 1989 Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations findings that revealed how the State Department authorized funds to companies owned by narcotics traffickers under the guise of “humanitarian aid to the Contras,” even when some of these companies were already facing indictments for cocaine smuggling and money laundering (pg. 36).
At best, covert elements within the US military-intelligence complex turned a blind eye to the massive amounts of crack cocaine supplied by the Contras that flooded American streets. At worst, they directly conspired to destabilize low-income communities in the US. After all, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both took Nixon’s drug war and turned it into a sprawling system of mass incarceration that wreaked havoc on communities of color, while also profiting immensely from the drug trade.
When It Comes to the War on Drugs, Who Are the Real Criminals?
“The CIA and the Department of State were protecting more and more politically powerful drug traffickers around the world: the Mujihadeen in Afghanistan, the Bolivian cocaine cartels, the top levels of Mexican government, Nicaraguan Contras, Colombian drug dealers and politicians, and others. Media's duties, as I experienced firsthand, were twofold: first, to keep quiet about the gush of drugs that was allowed to flow unimpeded into the US; second, to divert the public's attention by shilling them into believing the drug war was legitimate by falsely presenting the few trickles we were permitted to indict as though they were major "victories," when in fact we were doing nothing more than getting rid of the inefficient competitors of CIA assets. — Michael Levine, 25-year veteran of the DEA, best-selling author and journalist
When it comes to the War on Drugs, who are the real criminals? Where is the real justice? If you’re laundering billions of dollars for a drug cartel, or you’re a giant pharmaceutical company responsible for countless deaths and suffering, isn’t that a more serious crime than someone on the streets possessing cocaine?
The illicit drug trade fueled by the US government will likely create serious blowback in the coming years as the deadly drug addiction epidemic marches on, impacting millions of lives across the country. More importantly, these issues aren’t just political. They take a toll on our humanity. Our 15-min Mindful News Brief video explores this important topic in greater detail, including promising solutions and remedies to the War on Drugs.
Here's what we also find most useful in navigating this challenging issue:
Explore our War on Drugs news category of all of our news summaries from reliable media sources about the real story behind the war on drugs.
Read more about who's behind the War on Drugs in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.
Juan Sebastián Marroquín, the son of cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar, wrote a book in Spanish alleging that his father was working for the CIA all along. In his book, he explains how his "father worked for the CIA selling cocaine to finance the fight against Communism in Central America."
Highly decorated Army Special Forces officer James "Bo" Gritz was sent on missions in Southeast Asia to search for American POWs left behind after the Vietnam War. What he discovered was that the CIA and State Department were operating a large scale drug trafficking network in Southeast Asia and all over the world. He would conduct an interview with Burmese drug warlord Kuhn Sa, who told Gritz that his biggest and best customers were high-level U.S. government officials. He documents all of his revelations in his book, Called To Serve.
Explore an older investigation by Foreign Policy in Focus with key resources on the long history of CIA involvement in drug trafficking all over the world
The Wisdom of Trauma is a powerful film that travels alongside Dr. Gabor Maté in his quest to discover the connection between illness, addiction, trauma, and society. Deeply touching and captivating in its diverse portrayal of real human stories, the film also provides a new vision of a trauma-informed society that seeks to “understand the sources from which troubling behaviors and diseases spring in the wounded human soul.” Anyone can watch this donation-optional film at the above link.
Let’s work together across our political and cultural differences to end the corrupt war on drugs and repair our broken communities. As long as we choose complacency over awareness, these dysfunctions in the system will continue. Disturbing information like this can paradoxically remind us of the greater good. It is the courage of the people and the love for the common good that bring these injustices to light—fueling uncensored dialogue and constructive action. As ever increasing numbers of us come together in the intention of positive change — without being in denial of the destructive forces we face — we are helping shift the vision of humanity towards a more connected, free, and compassionate way of life.
With faith in a transforming world,
Amber Yang for WantToKnow.info