The CIA jump started the US urban crack epidemic. Any truth to this assertion?

[astro]

I was reading the story below and wondered how solid this thesis was:

It essentially claims that during the Reagan era the CIA allowed the Nicaraguan Contras (who were fighting the Marxist Sandinistas) and were desperate for cash, to shuttle cocaine into the US without substantive interference, and that this fueled the huge upswing in the US inner city urban crack epidemics in the 80’s…

I’ve seen this story floated over the years and never paid much attention to it as it seemed a bit out there, but the author of the article seems convinced the connection was very real.

Kill the Messenger
The tragic death of Gary Webb, one of America’s most important investigative journalists

CIA and Contra’s cocaine trafficking in the US

Gary Webb
Between 1996 and 1998 the Central Intelligence Agency investigated and then published a report about its alleged involvement in cocaine sales in the US. This was prompted by the journalist Gary Webb’s report in the Mercury News which alleged that the CIA was behind the 1980s Crack Epidemic.

Investigation
After the Gary Webb report in the Mercury News, the CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz was assigned to investigate these allegations in 1996. The CIA director John Deutch pledged that Hitz would present his findings in three months. But for almost a year and a half, there was little news. Then on December 18, 1997 stories in the Washington Post and New York Times appeared, stating that Hitz had found “no direct or indirect” links between the CIA and cocaine traffickers, despite the reporters never seeing the report. This story of no links between the CIA and cocaine traffickers was quickly picked up by the networks.

Six weeks later, the new CIA director, George Tenet declared that he was releasing the report. Tenet denied the Gary Webb allegations, which was reported nationally.

[FormerMarineGuy]

It seems that nobody is really disputing it 100% as of now. I remember reading the same thing but basically dismissed it as conspiracy theory. However, here is an article from the Department of Justice:

Official DOJ document on CIA/Crack/Contras

It is undisputed that individuals like Meneses and Blandon, who had ties to the Contras or were Contra sympathizers, were convicted of drug trafficking, either in the United States or Central America. There is also undeniable evidence that certain groups associated with the Contras engaged in drug trafficking. The pervasiveness of such activities within the Contra movement and the United States government’s knowledge of those activities, however, are still the subject of debate, and it is beyond the scope of the OIG’s investigation, which we describe below

Reading the whole article the way the Department of Justice writes it, it seems that it is able to be ‘tied together’, but is possibly far fetched, bordering conspiracy theory. I would assume if there were more facts backing it up, the average person would have heard more about it.

HOWEVER, the government did put crack cocaine in Popeye’s chicken, or so I heard from a friend, who heard from a friend, who’s cousin worked at a Popeyes.

[Lemur866]

Well, there’s two versions of the conspiracy theory. One version is that the Contras sold cocaine to finance their guerilla war in Nicaragua, and the CIA knew about it and looked the other way. This version is substantially true, for varying definitions of “the CIA”.

The other version is that the CIA was trying to figure out a way to kill and impoverish black people. And so they invented crack and CIA agents distributed it in the ghettos. This version is false.

[sweeteviljesus]

What I understand from reading the book Powderburns was that what was happening is that some of the pilots who were running guns to the Contras were picking up coke for their return trip back to the US and that we were turning a blind eye to that. It’s a stretch to say that the CIA was behind the crack epidemic. The book Freakonomics discusses a person whose name eludes me and refers to him as “the Johnny Appleseed of crack”. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think he worked for the CIA.

FWIW,
Rob

[RealityChuck]

@sweeteviljesus

I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think he worked for the CIA.

That’s what THEY want you to believe. :eek:

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@sweeteviljesus

I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think he worked for the CIA.

Sure he did. He was a Certified Internal Auditor. How do you think those guys stay awake while doing such an incredibly boring job?

[pravnik]

A previous thread on the subject: Why do many people believe that the US Government introduced Crack to the Ghettos?

In 1996, the San Jose Mercury News ran a doozy: the “Dark Alliance” series of articles that stated that cocaine was “virtually unobtainable” in black neighborhoods until the CIA and the Contra began importing it to South Central LA to fund the war in Nicaragua. The CIA characterizes the allegations like this:

The articles stated that Danilo Blandon, identified as a former Contra leader and a supplier of cocaine to Los Angeles drug dealer Ricky Ross, had testified in court that his cocaine profits supported the Contras, and that Blandon’s attorney had concluded that Blandon was selling cocaine for CIA.

The articles also reported that major narcotics trafficker Norwin Meneses had a relationship with the Contras, that CIA or others had hampered the criminal investigation of Meneses and that a relative of Meneses alleged that Meneses had financed the Contras. The articles also claimed that an associate of Blandon, Ronald Lister, was connected to CIA.

Further, the articles claimed that Carlos Cabezas, who had been convicted in a 1983 San Francisco drug prosecution known as “The Frogman Case,” was connected to Meneses and that Cabezas had obtained cocaine from drug trafficker Horacio Pereira, who had contact with the Contras. Finally, the articles reported that funds that had been seized from Julio Zavala, a leader of the prosecuted drug ring, had been returned to him by the U.S. Attorney’s Office because of Zavala’s claim that the money belonged to the Contras.

The CIA put together a 17 man team to investigate these allegations, and very long story very short, declared them to be baseless.* Here are links to the overview and the report itself:

https://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/cocaine/overview/overview.html

https://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/cocaine/report/index.html

*except for this little curiosity from the conclusion:

396. To what extent and why did CIA become involved in the prosecution of The Frogman Case? CIA did make contact with prosecutors in the Zavala prosecution in order to protect what CIA believed was an operational equity, i.e., a Contra support group in which it had an operational interest. A CIA cable indicates that approximately $36,000 seized from Zavala at the time of his arrest was returned to Zavala–based on the claim they were Contra funds–by the prosecutors at CIA’s request. However, the prosecutors state that the decision to return Zavala’s money was based on other considerations, not CIA’s representations, and that there was no evidentiary value to retaining the money. In any event, the actions taken by CIA to have the cash returned did not appear to be intended to influence the outcome of Zavala’s trial, which resulted in his conviction.