The book explains that most of the world's heroin was produced in the Golden Triangle and, according to the work, transported with the complicity or indifference of United States government employees.

The charge concludes with the statement that the traffic is being carried on with the indifference if not the closed-eye compliance of some American officials, and there is no likelihood of its being shut down in the foreseeable future.

"By mid 1971 Army medical officers were estimating that about 10 to 15 percent of the lower-ranking enlisted men serving in Vietnam were heroin users.

The CIA reacted strongly to the book: "...high-ranking officials of the C.I.A have signed letters for publication to a newspaper and a magazine, granted a rare on-the-record interview at the agency's headquarters in McLean, Va." The C.I.A letters were to the Washington Star and were signed by William E. Colby and Paul C. Velte Jr. "a Washington-based official with Air America, a charter airline that flies missions for the CIA in Southeast Asia.

"[5] CIA general counsel Lawrence R. Houston wrote to the book's publishers Harper & Row and asked that they be given the galley proofs so that the CIA could criticize errors and rebut unproven accusations:[6] "We believe we could demonstrate to you that a considerable number of Mr. McCoy's claims about this agency's alleged involvement are totally false and without foundation, a number are distorted beyond recognition and none is based on convincing evidence.

The third and expanded edition was published in 2003, more pointedly entitled The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade (ISBN 1-55652-483-8).