Opium: bitter, brownish, sticky - and highly addictive. But its impact goes beyond tales of personal pleasure or misery. It is a story played out on an international stage: major powers, local war lords, national governments - all have a stake in the continuing story that is illicit opium production. Pierre Chouvy exposes the politics behind illicit opium production. In particular he explores the remote mountainous regions of Asia that produce 90% of the world's illicit opium - the Golden Triangle of Thailand, Laos and Burma and the Golden Crescent of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. He reveals the real drivers of the modern day trade and shows why a century of international effort, and forty years of a US led war on drugs, have failed. A powerful insight into the complex international politics of the poppy.