Strategic use of narcotics by Red China, Britain, etc

"The origin of the ongoing cooperation between Chinese secret societies and the British dates from the time of the opium traide. With their control of river commerce and desire to overthrow the Manchus and restor the Ming dynasty, these societies were ideal partners to help the British. Most of them in Southern China had been formed in opposition to the Manchu Dynasty. The principal secret societies were the Heaven and Earth Society(天地會, a.k.a. the Three Dots Society, the Elder Brothers Society (大哥）, which controlled the Yangtze-Shanghai area; the Three United Society. The familiar designation of these societies as "triads" is derived from the latter group. In addition to trafficking in China's river system, the triads controlled gambling and prostitution. With British backing they became stron enough to stage revolts and gain control of some of the coastal cities. They were deeply implaned in the Fujian and Guangdong procinves, and from these provinces they emigrated overseas, creating a transnational network of secret societies protecting druge trafficking and other criminal activities.

Chinese leadership understood well its vulnerability when the triads allied themselves with foreigners. They also understood the foreigners' vulnerability when the triads were allied with the Chinese government. It should not come as a suprise then that once the opportunity arose Chinese leaders used narcotics as a weapon. As early as 1928 Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist leader, supported using opium against the "imperealists," as he termed the Western powers. In fact, two of Mao's generals, Chu The and Ho Lung, were members of a triad, the Elder Brothers Society. According to Joseph D. Douglass, Jr., Mao used narcotics to attack the United States, U.S. military forces in the Far East, Japan, and other Asian neighbors shortly after he secured mainland China in 1949. "The primary organizations involved in the early 1950s," Douglass noted, "were the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the Trade Ministry, and the Intelligence Service. North Korea was also trafficking narcotics in cooperation with China at this time and was directly connected with the flow of drugs into Japan and into the U.S. military bases in the Far East."

The growth in drug trafficking and abuse within the United States and elsewhere correlates strongly with the support of governments that promote and protect it. Douglas revealed how drug-related deaths and addictions in New York and San Francisco jumped dramatically in 1949-50 when Mao's international narcotics strategy was organized. A second jump occured in 1960 when Chinese operations were intensified and Societ narcotics trafficking operations began."

Hearings before a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 1955 described in great detail the role of the Chinese government in organizing the country's narcotics operations. The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture was in charge of producing better varieties of poppies, the Ministry of Commerce organized storage and export, the Ministry of Foreign trade menaged external trade, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs assisted marketing, and the Ministry of Public Security provided security. According to Douglass, "the trafficking tradecraft included classical smuggling; transport by shipping companies (both knowingly and unknowingly); use of communists and ethnic Chinese abroad; collaboration with international organized-crime syndicates; use of foreign posts of mainland parent organizaiont; abuse of diplomatic priviledge; use of normal branded merchandise as a cover; transport by mail; and forgery or packing with misleading trademarks."

In short, the Chinese government was involved in the production and distribution of drugs to undermine its enemies and to increase its national income. From the time of the opium wars, the Chinese had known very well that the consumption of drugs weakened their people, corrupted their government, and destroyed their morale. They made a conscious decision to use drugs as a weapon.

Soviet Model/Reason for infiltrating organized crime:

The main reason for infiltrating organized crime was the Soviet belief that high-quality information--information of political corruption, money and business, international relations, drug trafficking, and counter-intelligence--was to be found in organized crime. The Soviets reasoned that if they could successfully infiltrate organized crime, they would have unusually good possibilities to control many politicians and would have access to the best information on drugs, money, weapons, and corruption of many kinds. A secondary reason was to use organized crime as a convert mechanism for distributing drugs.

Page 62-64

Drug politics: dirty money and democracies
By David C. Jordan
Edition: illustrated
Published by University of Oklahoma Press, 1999
ISBN 0806131748, 9780806131740
288 pages

http://books.google.com/books?id=WK2HvMBKj4MC&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=triads+british+opium&source=bl&ots=BTVKZ87xGn&sig=4Xl5t0UcOiqFB3HR0NxUfCjEf9Q&hl=en&ei=CA3oSdW6B4GIkQWcka2NBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA65,M1