Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US, also narco man) a narcotics officer.

1955		in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dict. (1998).
1958		E. Gilbert Vice Trap 9: That was before he’d become narco heat.
1964		Larner & Tefferteller Addict in the Street (1966) 211: Four of them. Four narcos – four narcotic squad men from downtown.
1970		G. Scott-Heron Vulture (1996) 52: Lee must have dreams about the Narco men catchin’ him.
1977		E. Torres Q&A 50: Narco man. Spent all his time undercover.
1983		N. Heard House of Slammers 89: Stoolie McKnight, the Narco’s delight.
2012		J. Díaz This Is How You Lose Her 186: You start three novels: one about a pelotero, one about a narco and one about a bachatero.

2. (US) the narcotics department of a police station or hospital.

1955		H. Braddy ‘Narcotic Argot Along the Mexican Border’ in AS XXX:2 87: NARCO, n. The narcotic hospital in Lexington, Kentucky.
1958		W. Motley Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) 386: ‘We could send him to that place in Kentucky.’ ‘Narco,’ Juan said.
1973		R. Daley Target Blue 437: There had been a police narco team in the area.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 96: I went to the Commander of Narco.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 15: He’s on parole, and he’s a grasshopper. You could call Narco.

3. attrib. use of sense 2.

1963		M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 59: It was only a matter of time until he called the Narco Division.
1971		R. Woodley Dealer 44: ‘What was that back there?’ I asked. ‘What? That in the parking lot? Nothin. Well, it wasn’t no fuckin narco bulls’.
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 70: If that [i.e. solving a crime] involved kicking around in some goddam narco trap-line, that’s what he would do.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 21: Jack Vincennes glanced around the Narco pen.
1998		D. Hecht Skull Session 273: Uniform troopers did sometimes run legwork for BCI Narco investigations.
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Hot-Prowl Rape-O’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 265: The Narco bullpen: doom-deep in depression.

4. (chiefly drugs/Und./police) narcotics.

1962		J. Blake letter 31 Jan. in Joint (1972) 177: You ask why I’m here. For burglary and narco.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 20: The very thought of having to spend time in the lockup without any narco terrified him.
1978		R.D. Pharr Giveadamn Brown (1997) 19: The last guys the narco goes through before it hits the street.

5. attrib. use of sense 4.

1954		J. Blake letter 12 Jan. in Joint (1972) 38: If he had love and companionship he wouldn’t need anything in the narco line.
1968		N. von Hoffman We are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against 172: I promise [...] general amnesty for all people busted on narco charges.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 46: The government was building the first big narco conspiracy cases.
1977		J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 22: He was on television in San Francisco. ‘Father Fabe, The Narco Priest.’.
1995		J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 154: A nest of genteel dining tucked amid the narco-squalor.
1998		Source Oct. 156: PeeWee was one of the more memorable characters throughout Buddha’s narco adventures.
2007		T. Dorsey Hurricane Punch 19: Heard you were working off a narco beef, writing scrips to yourself.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 34: Squirrelled away by profiteering Nazis, global narco-crims [and] corrupt autocrats.

6. (drugs) a drug addict or drug dealer.

1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.
1998		Source Oct. 174: Mexican kids romanticized the narcos as modern-day folk heroes.
2002		Guardian G2 25 Mar. 7: The narcos [drug traffickers] must be behind this.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] You go up against narcos who are jacked on coke or speed, it helps to be pharmacologically even with them.
2020		D. Winslow ‘Broken’ in Broken 42: All are weapons they’ve taken from narcos.

7. (US black/drugs) the narcotics business.

1978

R.D. Pharr Giveadamn Brown (1997) 86: The people in narco nowadays simply do not have good sense’.