The Central Intelligence Agency sets up a charter airline to transport raw opium.
Date: 1970
To "aid" U.S. allies in Burma and Laos, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sets up a charter airline to transport raw opium. Some of the opium will also be transported to France, where it is refined into heroin and then shipped to the U.S.
The number of people dependent on heroin in the U.S. explodes to an estimated 750,000.