Introduction
The United States government has never waged a war on drugs. On the contrary, drugs in general—and so-called “narcotic” drugs such as cocaine in particular—constitute part of a powerful arsenal that the government flexibly deploys to wage war and to demonstrate its capacity to bring health, peace, and economic prosperity. Drugs historically have not been targets but rather tools; the ability to supply, withhold, stockpile, and police drugs, and to influence the public conversation about drugs, has been central to projections of US imperial power since the middle of the twentieth century. This book explores the relationship between drugs and war from World War II through the early Cold War and, in particular, how policing and profiting from their intersection has propelled the consolidation of US economic and political power on a global scale. It is an historical account of the international geography and regulatory sinews attached to one group of commodities that was foundational to international drug control: coca leaves and the various substances and consumer products derived from them. Throughout the time period of this study— the 1940s through the early 1960s—and still to the present day, those commodities included pharmaceutical-grade cocaine and the beverage Coca-Cola. The story reveals the importance of the pharmaceutical industry and drug control to US national power by examining the implementation of regulatory controls, cultural narratives, and economic hierarchies that accompanied the delineation of legal and illegal 1
