CIA Heroin & Crack Epidemic

[Althusser]

I've heard many claims about how the U.S. government pumped "problem areas" with heroin from their imperialist conquests in Southeast Asia, and eventually crack when their imperialist goals shifted to Latin America in the 80's.

Problem areas being where Afrikans were getting militant against white supremacy and capitalism. The US just cleaned house with the Black Panther Party and started saturating the hood with drugs to quell the masses. Any evidence to support these claims?

[adipocere]

This article about Gary Webb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb) is useful.

[Os Cangaceiros]

No, there is basically no evidence to support that conspiracy theory.

First off, the five families of the Mafia were pumping heroin (and coke, but mostly heroin at that time) into the east coast of the USA throughout the 1950's, well before the rise of "black power" and crack, etc. They positioned their distribution points in working class and lower-working class black and white neighborhoods, but that was because they didn't want to draw unwanted attention from law enforcement through dealing in more affluent neighborhoods. This was the logic of keeping drugs in the poor neighborhoods, from that era onward: economic logic based on maximizing profits and underpinned by class and perhaps even racial assumptions, but not some kind of conspiracy to keep the black man down or something.

As far as the allegations go regarding the CIA and drug trafficking, yes, a lot of that is based in fact. The Contras were involved in drug trafficking which helped finance their operations, and DEA agents (some of whom later wrote books, like Michael Levine and Celerino Castillo) were hindered in their operations by the CIA, because several of their targets were important CIA assets in their operations in Latin America. Ricky Ross' cocaine supplier was a known Contra associate. The CIA were informed of the fact that some of the mercenary pilots hired to assist the Contras were also involved in cocaine smuggling, but chose to do nothing because the geopolitical value of the Contras was more important. The same with Noriega (when he was still an American ally) and the allegations surrounding his regime and the global narcotics trade.

The kind of "you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet" realpolitik logic that was rampant during that time (the Cold War) is very different from the theory that CIA agents were directing truckloads of crack into the hood to suppress the uppity black nationalists, though, LOL

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah this is a story which is wide-spread, but I think is a conspiracy theory. But it's a conspiracy which comes out of how things don't seem to add up with the official story: when they talk about the "crack epidemic" they talk about it in isolation to economic devastation (they actually blame the devastation on drugs, rather than the other way around... drug abuse can cause personal misery, but not depressed standards of living, less social programs and factories restructuring and moving to other areas). So people aren't really just "ignorant" for thinking this, they just know something is happening which there is no apparent explanation for.

There is a lot of history of the CIA or military involved with drugs and drug-trafficking, but generally it has to do with managing drug trade or allowing trafficking in exchange for deals or funding black ops... not for the pacification of the US population.

The logical problems with the theory I think are 1) It assumes that in the crack epidemic that blacks used drugs more than whites... most data says people of all races use drugs in similar rates. 2) It ignores that the "war on drugs" began before the crack epidemic that later became an excuse and retroactive rationale for those programs. If it was a plot, they might have wanted to launch the war after the rationale was in place.

Capital and the conditions of capitalism cause "drug problems" because there's no time for a time-consuming addiction and wage-labor in our lives, the deindustrialization of urban areas in the late 60s and on created the conditions for drug dealing to be a way of life because no other living was as readily available, and because our lives are boring and drugs are an effective way to numb yourself from the alienation of capitalism.

[adipocere]

I agree with the above statements. I don't think there was any direct conspiracy to suppress black power per say, I think the primary motivation was greed - the target population (urban poor) was considered expendable.
However I do think that the media propaganda about crack use among black people and crack babies and the gang violence and so on may have been more cruelly deliberate. It also may have just been inherent racism in the reactionary, ultra right-wing media. Probably, it was both.

[Art Vandelay]

I agree with the above statements. I don't think there was any direct conspiracy to suppress black power per say

Whether or not drugs were involved (I tend to think Os and Jimmie's answers cover that pretty good) doesn't change the fact that there was a 'direct conspiracy to suppress the black power movement.' See: 'cointellpro.'

[adipocere]

Whether or not drugs were involved (I tend to think Os and Jimmie's answers cover that pretty good) doesn't change the fact that there was a 'direct conspiracy to suppress the black power movement.' See: 'cointellpro.'

Absolutely. There is no question about that. I was referring to smuggled drugs in the 80's-90's used as a deliberate means of suppressing the black power movement.

[Teacher]

A lot of the groups the U.S. government worked with/sent money to abroad are heavily involved in the drug trade. This is obviously true. The idea that this had anything to do with black nationalism is silly.

Alexander Cockburn's book Whiteout is good.