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In the 19th century, opium use spread throughout Asia, promoted by colonial powers. Meanwhile, the western pharmaceutical industry was developing some miraculous products, such as morphine, cocaine, and heroin. Addiction became a global scourge, and prohibition gradually became the norm. But outlawing these substances gave rise to the first drug-trafficking networks, which often sought to operate under state protection. These networks underwent unprecedented growth during the Cold War, when secret services used the drug trade as a political instrument. The United States paid the price for this: In 1970, one third of their troops in Vietnam were addicted to heroin. A year later, in an historic speech, President Richard Nixon launched the war on drugs.

The world's leading power is waging war on drugs: the United States is hitting hard. But drug trafficking never dies. It shifts, changes and adapts. As the war on drugs progressed around the world, a new generation of drug traffickers emerged in the late 1970s, more powerful than ever. These criminals were not only greedy for money, but also for power. If Pablo Escobar is the most emblematic of them all, Toto Riina in Sicily, Khun Sa in the Golden Triangle, Félix Gallardo in Mexico, have shaken up the destiny of their countries and caused drug trafficking to explode on a global scale. They defied governments and threatened the powers that be. It would take almost 20 years for governments to organize and develop strategies to bring down the drug barons.

Trafficking has become fragmented and atomized under the blows dealt by the police. Today's traffickers have mutated. Invisibility is their weapon. Trafficking is taking root in out-of-control zones: war zones such as Afghanistan and Colombia. In Mexico, the cartels have plunged the entire country into an unspeakable spiral of violence, and everywhere, the toll of the war on drugs is a macabre tally. Synthetic drugs, easy to manufacture and conceal, herald the fourth generation to come: white-coated drug dealers.