ABSTRACT
During the Cold War, geopolitical changes and political instability in Southeast and Southwest Asia were conducive to the regional expansion and promotion of the drug trade, particularly in the Golden Triangle, encompassing Laos, Thailand, and Burma. Concomitant with the close of the Vietnam War, opium production in Burma and the rest of the Golden Triangle declined precipitously. The Central Intelligence Agency alliances enabled warlords and drug lords to expand small local trade in opium and cocaine to become major brokers in the international drug markets. The source of the cocaine was Colombia, where the drug cartels were bolstered by the leadership of Pablo Escobar, who arranged to transport cocaine through Panama with support of Panamanian General Manuel Noriega. Plan Colombia was designed to reduce Colombian cocaine production and break the narco-funding of leftist peasant guerrillas known as the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC. Throughout the Cold War, the Soviets claimed that socialist societies did not experience drug abuse.
