Yesterday, on the eve of the nation’s most celebrated spectacle, the Super Bowl, it was announced that actor Philip Seymour Hoffman had died from a heroine overdose, reportedly with the needle still in his arm. Of course, Hoffman is responsible for his own actions, especially given that he had numerous opportunities to benefit from rehab and was taking medicine to counteract the addictive nature of the drugs. In short, he had resources many don’t have access to.
However, we will argue here that there is plenty of blame to go around, and much of it at the feet of the world’s only global empire, the United States government, who has continually made available heroin and other drugs increasingly inexpensive, available and at a greater purity than would otherwise be possible for geopolitical gain.
Worldwide heroine supply has been on the rise since 2001 when the US invaded Afghanistan and allowed the production of the opium fields to resume. According to the New York Times, Afghanistan “accounted for 75 percent of the world’s heroin supply” in 2012 and was expected by UN officials to reach 90 percent by the end of 2013. Heroin production had been illegal in the country in the year prior to the US invasion. As a result of the booming supply, the drug is cheap, selling for as little as $4 a package, according to The New York Daily News.
Bloomberg News writes, “The Justice Department says Mexican heroin production rose more than six-fold from 2005 to 2009, to about 50 metric tons… Heroin seized from the Sinaloa cartel was 94 percent pure in 2011.” Compare that to doses in the 1960s where does were less than 10 percent pure.
Bloomberg continues, “The record death toll is fueled by increases in the volume and purity of heroin, both credited chiefly to the Sinaloa cartel. Meanwhile, the Mexican press has reported that the Sinaloa cartel has an alliance with the US Justice Department — in exchange for help in destroying the rival cartels, the US government would agree to allow smuggling of drugs into the United States. Specifically, they would not charge criminals from the Sinaloa cartel if they were discovered selling drugs within US boarders.
A lawsuit filed by one such trafficker last year read:
“This strategy, which he calls ‘Divide & Conquer,’ using one drug organization to help against others, is exactly what the Justice Department and its various agencies have implemented in Mexico. In this case, they entered into an agreement with the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel through, among others, Humberto Loya-Castro, to receive their help in the United States government’s efforts to destroy other cartels.”
Mexican newspaper El Universal confirmed the story in a major expose earlier this year.
“‘The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has operated in the same way in Colombia since the 1980s, in Cambodia, in Thailand, and for more than 10 years also in Afghanistan, and is the standard modus operandi of the Agency,’ said Edgardo Buscaglia, Professor at Columbia University.
‘Of course, this modus operandi involves a violation of public international law, besides being more fuel to the fire of violence, violations of due process and human rights,’ said Buscaglia.”
The press is reporting that Philip Seymour Hoffman used a particular brand of heroin, whose packages were stamped with an Ace of Spades and Ace of Hearts Logo. Business Insider notes that the batch of heroin is laced with Fentanyl, a variety that “killed 22 people in Pennsylvania last week. Maryland, New York, and Ohio have also seen surges of overdoses linked to the deadly drug in the past year.”
Additional details on the source of the heroin may or may not connect it to the US government’s alliance with the Sinaloa cartel. Regardless, our conclusion is that the US government is responsible for the heroin’s purity, its affordability, and its availability, and is almost certainly a contributing factor in Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death and many other deaths around the world.
The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) recently had a similar scandal in which they let guns “walk” across the border into Mexico — guns which were later used by Mexican drug cartels against the Mexican army and police, as well as US and Mexican citizens. It’s colloquially known as the “Fast and Furious” scandal. The stated objective was to track the weapons as they worked their way up the cartel, but of the 2,000 weapons tracked, only about 710 have been recovered. The bureau’s vision was criticized then and now for being short sighted and criminal, putting civilian lives in real danger for geopolitical gains.
This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who knows the history of the US government as it relates to drug distribution. In the 1980s, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Reagan administration oversaw the distribution of crack-cocaine in Los Angeles, documented at length in journalist Gary Webb’s 1996 series called Dark Alliance. In it, Webb links the US government’s actions to the funding of the Nicaraguan paramilitary group, the Contras. Law enforcement officers in LA publicly complained that actions targeted against the drug dealers were continually blocked by the DEA and CIA. DEA agent Celerino Castillo III even testified to the House Permanent Select Committee on intelligence that he witnessed Contra supply planes land in an airbase just outside of San Salvador and leave for the United States with shipments of cocaine.
Initial reaction to Webb’s series was fierce rejection and criticism from the establishment press. Two years later, CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz admitted “there are instances where CIA did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug-trafficking activity or take action to resolve the allegations.” Hitz’s report also pointed out that the CIA routinely withheld evidence from government investigators, withheld information about Contra war crimes from the Justice Department, and documented other cover-ups.
Webb was found dead in 2004 with two gunshot wounds to the head. The death was ruled a suicide.
Suggested Reading:
Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press
Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
Original Dark Alliance Story that appeared in the Mercury News
