# Narcotics under cover > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "Narcotics under cover," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/narcotics-under-cover/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *John Kiriakou's answer to whether a CIA officer under cover may take drugs when an asset offers them: yes. The rule he describes begins with qat in Yemen and extends to cocaine in Latin America, on the ground that refusing can be a matter of life and death.* - **Question put:** May an officer partake, to establish that he is not the police? - **Kiriakou's answer:** "The answer is yes. You may partake of the drugs" - **Origin of the rule:** Qat dispensations in Yemen and the Horn of Africa - **Countries named for the harder case:** Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador - **Justification:** "It could be a matter of life and death" **Narcotics under cover** is the subject of a question put to [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) by a viewer of his Q&A programme: while operating under cover, if a valuable asset invites the officer to take drugs, is he permitted to do so in order to establish that he is not the police? Kiriakou's answer was immediate and unqualified. *"The answer is yes. You may partake of the drugs."*[1] ## The rule's origin What follows is a history rather than a policy citation. *"This all started way back in the day in Yemen,"* Kiriakou says, and the substance concerned was [qat](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/qat-in-yemen) — a shrub whose leaves are chewed green every afternoon by, in his account, effectively every man in the country. Because a source could not be developed by an officer sitting out the national ritual, the CIA issued *"special dispensation to every officer working in Yemen or in other qat-chewing countries like Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea."*[1][2] The rationale Kiriakou gives for the original dispensation is social rather than pharmacological: *"you've got to do it to fit in."*[2] ## The harder case Kiriakou then extends the rule to substances that are unambiguously narcotics and to postings where the stakes are higher. *"Now, if you're deep undercover in Colombia or Mexico or Peru or Ecuador and you need to snort a line, they're going to let you snort a line."*[3] The justification changes with the setting. Where qat was a matter of fitting in, cocaine in a deep-cover setting is a matter of survival: *"It could be a matter of life and death. So, you're going to snort the line."*[3] ## Kiriakou's own reaction to the question Kiriakou marks the exchange as unusual. *"Nobody's ever asked me that question before. Good question,"* he says — a note that places the subject among the parts of operational life that are routine inside the organisation and almost never discussed outside it.[3] The answer sits alongside the general position he takes in the same session on the relative morality of intelligence services: that the CIA's conduct is not constrained in the ways outsiders assume, and that [most other countries' services behave better](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/more-moral-than-the-cia).[4] ## See also - [Qat in Yemen](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/qat-in-yemen) - [More Moral Than The Cia](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/more-moral-than-the-cia) - [CIA Drug Facilitation](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-drug-facilitation) - [Cover position](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cover-position) ## Sources 1. Iran Escalation, Captured Spies: What Really Happens? And More I Going Deeper w/JK - DEEP FOCUS (2026-03-03), at 22:51. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4_p0sXfdMU&t=1371s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-03-the-deep-focus-iran-escalation-captured-spies-what-really-happens/ 2. Iran Escalation, Captured Spies: What Really Happens? And More I Going Deeper w/JK - DEEP FOCUS (2026-03-03), at 23:55. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4_p0sXfdMU&t=1435s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-03-the-deep-focus-iran-escalation-captured-spies-what-really-happens/ 3. Iran Escalation, Captured Spies: What Really Happens? And More I Going Deeper w/JK - DEEP FOCUS (2026-03-03), at 24:25. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4_p0sXfdMU&t=1465s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-03-the-deep-focus-iran-escalation-captured-spies-what-really-happens/ 4. Iran Escalation, Captured Spies: What Really Happens? And More I Going Deeper w/JK - DEEP FOCUS (2026-03-03), at 24:57. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4_p0sXfdMU&t=1497s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-03-the-deep-focus-iran-escalation-captured-spies-what-really-happens/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/narcotics-under-cover/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt