On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:01:58 -0500, "Gig 601XL Builder"
wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in
:

The "war on drugs" has been handled wrong from the get-go.

That depends on the intended purpose of the WOD. If you want to
reduce recreational drug use among the populous, its obvious that
hasn't worked.

If, on the other hand, the intent of the WOD is to inflate the price
of drugs, provide the mob and the CIA with a lucrative black market,
grow the government's police force, and funnel millions of dollars
into law enforcement, it's working pretty good.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_and...king_in_the_US
CIA and Contra's cocaine trafficking in the US

On March 16, 1986, the San Francisco Examiner published a report
on the "1983 seizure of 430 pounds of cocaine from a Colombian
freighter" in San Francisco which indicated that a "cocaine ring
in the San Francisco Bay area helped finance Nicaragua's Contra
rebels." Carlos Cabezas, convicted of conspiracy to traffic
cocaine, said that the profits from his crimes "belonged to ...
the Contra revolution." He told the Examiner, "I just wanted to
get the Communists out of my country." Julio Zavala, also
convicted on trafficking charges, said "that he supplied $500,000
to two Costa Rican-based Contra groups and that the majority of it
came from cocaine trafficking in the San Francisco Bay area, Miami
and New Orleans."[4]

FBI probe
In April 1986, Associated Press reported on an FBI probe into
contra cocaine trafficking. According to the report, "Twelve
American, Nicaraguan and Cuban-American rebel backers interviewed
by The Associated Press said they had been questioned over the
past several months [about contra cocaine trafficking] by the FBI.
The interviews, some covering several days, were conducted in
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Colorado and
California, the Contra backers said." Several of the backers told
AP of firsthand knowledge of cocaine trafficking.[6]

Reagan Administration admits Contra-cocaine connections On April
17, 1986, the Reagan Administration released a three page report
acknowledging that there were some Contra-cocaine connections in
1984 and 1985, arguing that these connections occurred at a time
when the rebels were "particularly hard pressed for financial
support" because U.S. aid had been cut off. The report admitted
that "We have evidence of a limited number of incidents in which
known drug traffickers have tried to establish connections with
Nicaraguan resistance groups." The report tried to downplay the
drug activity, claiming that it took place "without the
authorization of resistance leaders."[7]




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA#Drug_trafficking
Accusations have repeatedly been made that the CIA has been
involved in drug trafficking to fund illegal operations. For
example, In 1996, journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of exposés
for the San Jose Mercury News, entitled "Dark Alliance", in which
he alleged the use of CIA aircraft, which had ferried arms to the
Contras, to ship cocaine to the United States during the return
flights.

Webb also alleged that Central American narcotics traffickers
could import cocaine to U.S. cities in the 1980s without the
interference of normal law enforcement agencies. He claimed that
this led, in part, to the crack cocaine epidemic, especially in
poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles, and that the CIA intervened to
prevent the prosecution of drug dealers who were helping to fund
the Contras. Faced with Congressional and other media criticism
(especially the Los Angeles Times), the San Jose Mercury News
retracted Webb's conclusions and Webb was prevented from
conducting any more investigative reporting. Webb was transferred
to cover non-controversial suburban stories and gave up
journalism.

After the Gary Webb report in the Mercury News, the CIA Inspector
General Frederick Hitz was assigned to investigate these
allegations. In 1998 the new CIA director, George Tenet declared
that he was releasing the report.[61]

The report and Hitz's testimony showed that the "CIA did not
'expeditiously' cut off relations with alleged drug traffickers"
and "the CIA was aware of allegations that 'dozens of people and a
number of companies connected in some fashion to the contra
program' were involved in drug trafficking"[61][62]

Hitz also said that under an agreement in 1982 between Ronald
Reagan's Attorney General William French Smith and the CIA, agency
officers were not required to report allegations of drug
trafficking involving non-employees, which was defined as meaning
paid and non-paid "assets [meaning agents], pilots who ferried
supplies to the contras, as well as contra officials and
others.[62]

This agreement, which had not previously been revealed, came at a
time when there were allegations that the CIA was using drug
dealers in its controversial covert operation to bring down the
leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.[62] Only after
Congressional funds were restored in 1986 was the agreement
modified to require the CIA to stop paying agents whom it believed
were involved in the drug trade.[61]



http://www.csun.edu/CommunicationStudies/ben/news/cia/
In August of 1996, the San Jose Mercury News published a
three-part investigation by Gary Webb into the U.S. government's
links to the trade in crack cocaine in South Central Los Angeles.
Webb's investigation uncovered links between the Central
Intelligence Agency's covert war against Nicaragua and convicted
Los Angeles drug dealer "Freeway" Ricky Ross, whom the Los Angeles
Times in 1994 had dubbed the "one outlaw capitalist most
responsible for flooding Los Angeles' streets with mass-marketed
cocaine." (20 December 1994 p. A20)

The (admittedly sensationalized, but basically accurate) story
generated much controversy, and heated denials from the mainstream
media (in particular the local paper of record, whose editor
Shelby Coffey III couldn't bear the thought of someone else
beating his paper out on a major story in his own backyard). This
vehement denegation, however, is largely inconsistent with the
historical record (some of which has been, and continues to be,
reported in these same papers).

This web site is part of a long-standing research project of mine.
As a scholar working at the interstices of speech communication
and cultural studies, I have been investigating the public
discourse surrounding the "war on drugs" as an exercise in
disciplinary social control. This site is a database of
information, evidence, and other resources that have helped guide
me in this research project, and will hopefully help others
working along the same lines.

http://rwor.org/a/firstvol/crack.htm