Talk:United States and cannabis eradication abroad

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Discussion for: United States and cannabis eradication abroad • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

United States and cannabis eradication abroad treats what the government of the United States did, from 1969, to bring about the destruction of cannabis crops in other countries: diplomatic pressure, money, aircraft and spraying equipment, advisers and agents, and intelligence estimates. Each spraying campaign is told in full on its own page (Mexico, Colombia, Belize, South Africa), and eradication inside the United States on Herbicide spraying in the United States. Opium poppy and coca appear only where the same programme or document covers cannabis. Claims that US intelligence agencies grew, carried or protected cannabis are reported as allegations, with who makes them.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Why the page is about the US government, not the CIA

• The sources that document a US part in cannabis eradication abroad are State Department, General Accounting Office, DEA and congressional documents, together with the historians who read them (Cedillo 2021, Pérez Ricart 2020, Britto 2010). They show the United States as a source of pressure, money, aircraft, spraying equipment, advisers and intelligence.
• In the documents read, the Central Intelligence Agency appears as the author of intelligence reports on marijuana (1978, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986) and as a member of the National Narcotics Intelligence Consumers Committee from 1978. No document read shows the CIA growing, carrying, protecting or paying for cannabis. The claims that it did are told under "Allegations and stories", attributed to the people who make them, with the CIA's denial where one was published.

Sources and how they were read

• Read in full on the publishers' or archives' own sites: the FRUS volume E–10 Mexico chapter and Document 435 (history.state.gov); the GAO reports GGD-77-6 (1977), GAO/T-NSIAD-87-42 (1987), GAO/NSIAD-88-94 (1988) and GAO/NSIAD-89-24 (1988) (gao.gov); Public Laws 95-384 and 97-113 (congress.gov, govinfo.gov); the NNICC report for 1985–1986, the INCSR of March 1988 and the House study-mission print of 1986 (NCJRS scans); the Meese address of 18 March 1986 (justice.gov); the Turner memorandum of 12 February 1986 (Reagan Library scan).
• The CIA documents (International Narcotics Review, 16 and 30 August 1978; GI 82-10211; the Jamaica memorandum of July 1985; GI 86-10051) were checked on the CIA reading room: title, date, page count and the quoted passages. The 1978 Senate hearing is held in the same reading room; its text was read in a full-text copy of the same scan.
• The 1969 task force report was read from the National Security Archive's scan (pages 6 and 35 quoted).
• The Kerry subcommittee report (S. Prt. 100-165, 1989) and the House hearing of 12–13 October 1983 on South Florida were read in Internet Archive full-text copies. The quoted Kerry passages carry no page numbers here because the text copy does not show them reliably.
• Pérez Ricart (2020) was read in the author's accepted manuscript, whose pagination differs from the published article. The article therefore cites the published page range only and paraphrases him rather than quoting him.
• McCoy (2003) was read in a full-text copy of the 2003 Lawrence Hill edition; pages 184 and 291 are taken from the running heads.

Who paid for spraying marijuana in Mexico

• The sources disagree, and the article gives each position with its holder: Senator McGovern's statement of the administration's position and the Mexican Attorney General's view relayed by Toney Anaya (both 1978: a Mexican initiative, Mexican-funded); Keith Stroup of NORML (1978: more than $50 million since 1973, "primarily paid for by U.S. funds"); Landrigan and colleagues (1983: "supported indirectly by United States funds"); The Christian Science Monitor (1981: "funded by Washington"); Reuter and Ronfeldt for RAND (1992: US pressure for spraying opium only, Mexico's own initiative on marijuana); Pérez Ricart (2020: the Carter administration said its money was for poppy).
• The GAO's figure of more than $150 million since 1977 covers the aerial programme against both opium poppy and marijuana; no source read separates the marijuana share.
• The Christian Science Monitor of 20 December 1983 puts US aid to the Mexican programme at $94 million over a decade, in a passage about poppy spraying. It is not used.

Names and dates of the Mexican campaigns

• Cedillo (2021, p. 8) names the campaigns of 1969–1975 Canador and the joint campaign from November 1975 Trizo. Pérez Ricart (2020) writes that the DEA called the 1975–1976 campaign TRIZO and Mexico called it CANADOR, from cannabis and adormidera. The article gives both and does not merge them.
• Operation Intercept: the State Department fixed the start for 3 p.m. Los Angeles time on 21 September 1969, and FRUS records Operation Cooperation replacing it on 10 October. The PBS Frontline chronology says it lasted two weeks; the FRUS dates are used.
• Operation Condor here is the Mexican eradication campaign from 1977, not the South American Plan Cóndor; the link target carries "(Mexico)" for that reason.

Colombian spraying figures

• The totals do not agree and are not reconciled in the article: GAO, more than 33,000 hectares from July 1984 to 1987; the NNICC, about 6,000 hectares in 1985 and 9,700 in 1986; the INCSR, about 6,100 hectares by the three Thrush aircraft in 1987; an unnamed US official quoted by The Christian Science Monitor (31 January 1992), more than 15,000 acres from 1984 to 1988; Tokatlian, quoted in an Indepaz history of fumigation, 3,171 hectares (Colombian figure) or 3,400 (US figure) for 1984. The GAO (1988, p. 34) found no formal US check on the Colombian figures.
• A Cultural Survival Quarterly article says Colombia sprayed paraquat first and then changed to glyphosate after complaints. UPI (11 July 1984) and the Indepaz account both have glyphosate chosen from the start, and the article follows them.
• UPI's report that no US money was used in 1984 rests on unnamed administration officials, and its statement about American helicopters is hedged ("reportedly"); both are given in those terms.

South Africa: when the US helicopters arrived

• De Greef (GroundUp, 20 April 2016) dates the US gift of a helicopter and three spraying devices to 2004. Nowicki (GroundUp, 2024) writes that US-donated helicopters became part of police eradication in the 1990s. The two are given side by side.
• The International Drug Policy Consortium page of 19 January 2016 is a statement submitted to an international forum; its claim of European and US funding gives no source and is quoted as an assertion.

Rancho Búfalo

• Excélsior (2022) puts the crop at 8,000 tonnes; other accounts range from about 4,000 to 10,000 tonnes. The court judgment reported by Excélsior places the fields in Jiménez municipality; other accounts say Allende. Only the Excélsior figures are used, attributed.
• The Fox News report (2013) concerns DFS protection of Caro Quintero's smugglers and the Camarena murder. It does not name the Búfalo plantation, and no source read ties the CIA to it.

Not used, and why

• CovertAction Information Bulletin no. 28 (1987) relays claims about a Honduran airstrip, a Lebanese hashish smuggler and an Afghan hashish case. It is an activist periodical relaying press and testimony; the underlying records were not found.
• A blog post by a former Peace Corps volunteer (2019) mentions a rumour of the early 1960s that volunteers were CIA. It is not a citable source, and no source read says that the CIA started the Colombian marijuana trade. Novels and films that use the Peace Corps story are not used.
• Thoumi (1992) and LaRosa and Mejía (2012) were seen only as search snippets on the Peace Corps story and are not cited until read.
• The Peace Corps nurse arrested in La Guajira in June 1977 (Colombian press of 17 June 1977, in a US translation) is a later event, not evidence for the origin story; it is left out.
• Lebanon and the Philippines: no source read shows US funding or equipment for cannabis eradication in the 1980s. A Jamaican "Operation Buccaneer" of 1974 was not found in any source.
• The NNICC report for 1987 gives "250 hectares" eradicated in Thailand in 1987 against 2,400 and more than 3,000 in the two years before; the scanned text may have lost a digit, so the figure is not used.
• No source read connects the Kuomintang forces in Burma and northern Thailand, or Khun Sa's forces, with cannabis; McCoy's books and the CIA memoranda on them concern opium. The page therefore says nothing about them.
• No source read says that the CIA moved Hmong people into northern Thailand. Michaud and Culas (1997) date Hmong settlement in Siam to the late 19th century. The CIA's documented work with Hmong, in McCoy's account, was in Laos.
• G13: the government-garden story belongs to the University of Mississippi's research contract and is treated at University of Mississippi#G13; the article gives it one paragraph so that readers who meet it in this context find it.

Open questions

• Richard Craig's article on Operation Intercept (Review of Politics 42(4), 1980) and Elaine Shannon's Desperados (1988) were not read; both may add to the Mexico section.
• The 1978 suit by NORML against US support for the Mexican spraying was argued before Judge Joseph Waddy in May 1978; its outcome was not found.