“United States government agencies deliberately permitted drug trafficking in order to increase the criminalization of African American communities.”

On the whole, our review did not substantiate the main allegations stated and implied in the Mercury News articles. … We found no indication that it was the result of any alleged affiliation with the Contras or the CIA. … Such factors, rather than anything as extraordinary as efforts by the CIA or others to protect the drug trafficking activities of these Contra supporters, determined the outcome in these cases we examined.

The answer you get to the questions you ask depends totally on how you frame the question. If you ask the question, did the CIA sell drugs in the Black neighborhoods of Los Angeles to finance the Contra war, the answer will be a categorical no. The fact of the matter is we found no evidence whatsoever to suggest that there was a targeting of the African-American community.

Our investigation has not developed any corroboration of mediaexploited allegations that U.S. government-condoned drug ' trafficking by Contra leaders or Contra organizations or that Contra leaders or organizations did in fact take part in such activity. … There was no information developed indicating any U.S. government agency or organization condoned drug trafficking by the Contras or anyone else. . … No information has been found to indicate that any past or present employee of CIA, or anyone acting on behalf of CIA, had any direct or indirect dealing with Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandon or Iuan Norwin Meneses.

What made the War on Drugs become, for all practical purposes, a war on Blacks? In this article, I argue that the drug war's focus on the African American community was neither an accident nor a conspiracy. Rather, the drug war is simply a prominent example of the central role both race and the definition of crime play in the maintenance and legitimization of white supremacy.

We have found no evidence, in the course of this lengthy investigation, of any conspiracy by CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States. … Based on its investigation, involving numerous interviews, reviews of extensive documentation and a thorough and critical reading of other investigative reports, the Committee has concluded that the implications of the San Jose Mercury News that the CIA was responsible for the crack epidemic in Los Angeles or anywhere else in the United States to further the cause of the Contra War in Central America-were wrong.

The Mercury News articles sparked renewed interest in such allegations, but the articles' chief significance was their suggestion that the CIA and other agencies of the United States government may have been responsible for the crack epidemic that ravaged the African-American community in South Central Los Angeles and other communities throughout the country. … In short, our review did not substantiate the main allegations stated and implied in the Mercury News articles. … We did not find that Blandon, Meneses, or the other Contra supporters referred to in these articles received special consideration or leniency with regard to their investigation or prosecution by the Department of Justice because of their Contra connections.

The focus of our investigation was on the activities of DOJ agencies and their employees concerning the investigation and prosecution of Blandon and Meneses, and whether those investigations and prosecutive actions were influenced by any affiliations with the Contras or the CIA. As discussed in the previous two chapters, despite an exhaustive review of the available documents and scores of interviews with relevant witnesses, we did not find any such influence on DOJ actions.

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people,” Ehrlichman said. “You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.

The allegations accuse the agency of selling crack cocaine in the Los Angeles area to fund Contra activities in Nicaragua. … CIA Inspector-General Frederick Hitz outlined his report which finds no evidence of a link between the CIA and drug traffickers in Central America.

These factors, rather than anything as spectacular as a systematic effort by the CIA to protect the drug trafficking activities of the Contras, determined what occurred in the cases we examined.

The Kerry subcommittee did not report that U.S. government officials ran drugs, but rather, that Mr. North, then on the National Security Council staff at the White House, and other senior officials created a privatized contra network that attracted drug traffickers looking for cover for their operations, then turned a blind eye to repeated reports of drug smuggling related to the contras, and actively worked with known drug smugglers such as Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega to assist the contras.

Before I go any further, I want to make clear that we found absolutely no evidence to indicate that CIA as an organization or its employees were involved in any conspiracy to bring drugs into the United States.

The document, nearly 500 pages long, also said that U.S. officials during the Reagan administration failed to address the drug issue 'for fear of jeopardizing the war effort against Nicaragua' and that the war weakened an 'already inadequate law enforcement capability' that was exploited for drug smuggling. … In addition, the report concluded, the U.S. government allowed foreign policy considerations to interfere with battling the drug menace. … 'Foreign policy priorities towards the Bahamas, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama at times delayed, halted or interfered with U.S. law enforcement efforts to keep narcotics out of the United States,' the report said.

Consistent with theories of institutional racism, our findings demonstrate that aggressive crack prosecutions at the district level are a strong predictor of black–white inequality in conviction rates across the entire criminal caseload, and a much more modest predictor of inequality in final sentence outcomes.

Using a random sample of Texas felony drug offenders sentenced during the height of the US War on Drugs, results from the present research show main and conditional effects of race/ethnicity, gender and age on sentence severity. … The probability of receiving prison time was greater and sentences were longer for African Americans, African American males and African American males ages 22—30.

Webb's series led to three federal investigations, all of which concluded there was no evidence of a conspiracy by CIA officials or its employees to bring drugs into the United States. … As I said earlier, we have found no evidence in the course of this lengthy investigation of any conspiracy by CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States.

The documents demonstrate official knowledge of drug operations, and collaboration with and protection of known drug traffickers.

ALLEGATIONS OF CONNECTIONS BETWEEN CIA AND THE CONTRAS IN COCAINE TRAFFICKING TO THE UNITED STATES

For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, an investigation by the San Jose Mercury News has found. … Thousands of young black men are serving long prison sentences for selling cocaine - a drug that was virtually unobtainable in black neighborhoods before members of the CIA’s army brought it into South Central in the 1980s at bargain-basement prices. … Agents from four organizations - the DEA, U.S. Customs, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement - have complained that investigations were hampered by the CIA or unnamed “national security” interests.

On the other hand, the federal investigations initiated after “Dark Alliance’s” publication – some years after the completion of the Kerry Report – failed to support Webb’s more scandalous findings. … An investigation into the CIA by the House Intelligence Committee found no evidence“that anyone associated with the CIA or other intelligence agencies was involved in supplying or selling drugs in Los Angeles”.

The subcommittee also found that too often other foreign policy interests were permitted to sidetrack, disrupt, and undercut the war on drugs. As a result, our law enforcement personnel have been demoralized and our communities threatened.

Beneath society's adherence to a failed criminalization approach is a startling indifference to its racial impact, which includes a vast increase in the number and representation of poor minorities in the prison system, particularly young African American males.

An argument can be made that the drug war has intentionally targeted African-Americans.

Although there are more white cocaine users, national drug enforcement and prosecutorial policies and practices have resulted in inner city commu nities of color being targeted almost exclusively. This has caused the over whelming number of prosecutions to be directed against African Americans, and because of the sentencing disparities, these African Americans are dis proportionately given longer sentences than powder users.

The three-part series by reporter Gary Webb linked the CIA and Nicaragua’s Contras to the crack cocaine epidemic that ripped through South Los Angeles in the 1980s.

Their investigations have generally noted that there is no clear evidence CIA itself had ever directly engaged in drug trafficking, although there may have been instances of the organization being indirectly complicit in the activities of others. … In 1996, Gary Webb wrote a series of articles published in the San Jose Mercury News, which investigated Nicaraguans linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had smuggled cocaine into the U.S. which was then distributed as crack cocaine into Los Angeles and funneled profits to the Contras. His articles asserted that the CIA was aware of the cocaine transactions and the large shipments of drugs into the U.S. by the Contra personnel and directly aided drug dealers to raise money for the Contras.

The Subcommittee determined that there was "substantial evidence of drug smuggling... on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the Contras, and Contra supporters". … The Kerry Committee report found that "the Contra drug links included... Payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies."

From the traffic laws in the 1930s through the protest and riot-related legislation in the 1960s and the drug laws of the 1980s, we see a steady and consistent motivation to pass laws to control Black Americans.

On the basis of this evidence, it is clear that individuals who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking, the supply network of the Contras was used by drug trafficking organizations, and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers. In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter.

The report documented significant "Contra drug links," and concluded that "senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems."

"[It is an] issue that feels like a dagger in the heart of African Americans. . .. Even if the CIA's motive proves less malevolent, any evidence that it supported drug trafficking would indeed be the crime of the century."