With the end of the cold war, the disintegration of hostile power blocs, and the spread of capitalist values and lifestyles, the illegal drug market is expanding to Eurasian communist and former communist ("Eastern") states. Opium cultivation is expanding rapidly in several such states: China, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Tadjukistan, and Turkmenistan. According to a 1993 United Nations estimate, Vietnam now produces 27-39 tons of raw heroin annually. In China, poppy plantings have been reported in 17 of the Nation's 30 Provinces, and drug use is rapidly increasing. Several Eastern states -- Poland, China, Russia, Azerbaidjan, and the Baltic countries -- are emerging as important producers and exporters of sophisticated amphetamine drugs. There is the risk that the growth of narcotics industries in the Eastern states could increase the supply of various types of drugs to the United States and other Western countries. Of particular concern is the development of cooperative ties between transnational criminal organizations and trafficking groups in the East. Such linkages will help to augment world global drug flows, to open new consumer markets for drugs, and to increase the power and reach of the criminal enterprises that deal in these substances. The United States has a major security interest in the stability and positive growth of Eastern states. Yet drugs degrade and corrode the political environment; they exacerbate existing political cleavages and jeopardize an already difficult reform process in a number of communist and post-communist Eurasian states. The potential effects of the drug trade on the political systems and the international behavior of these states should command more attention from intelligence analysts and policymakers in the United States and elicit appropriate policy responses. 12 notes