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This series examining the history of black people in the United States isn’t one in which the usual writings focusing on slavery, the civil rights movement, and the present state of black America. Rather, it will put a lens on subject matter that is often unknown and rarely talked about, from how the North benefitted from slavery to the creation of the ghetto to alleged government involvement with the transportation of drugs into the black community. While the story of black people in the US is viewed generally as one of struggle, however it is also one of rebellions and uprisings against unjust conditions. In many ways, it is a story of resistance and hope against seemingly indomitable odds.

Don't miss reading the previous part: "Black Capitalism"

Nixon launched war on the black population as well through his War on Drugs. On June 17, 1974 he made a statement saying that “America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.” [1] Statements such as this created the idea that drug use was rampant and a major problem nationwide. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case. In 2002 Gallup reported that



In [the] popular imagination, the 1960s were the heyday of illegal drug use -- but historical data indicate they probably weren't. In fact, surveys show that drug abuse was comparably rare, as was accurate information about the effects of illegal drugs. In a 1969 Gallup poll, only 4% of American adults said they had tried marijuana. Thirty-four percent said they didn't know the effects of marijuana, but 43% thought it was used by many or some high school kids. [2] (emphasis added)

So drug use wasn’t even particularly high during the ‘60s and into the ‘70s. What is interesting is that the War on Drugs was formally launched in 1974; however, 10 years later there were reports of crack-cocaine being used. According to a New York Times article from 1985 a new form of cocaine (crack) was hitting the streets, with mainly teenagers engaging in its abuse and in 1986 they noted that “On the street corners of Harlem, the Lower East Side and other inner-city neighborhoods around the country ravaged by the heroin epidemic of the late 1960's and early 70's, teen-agers - the people who determine future drug trends - are turning to cocaine as their drug of choice.” [3] There was an importation of cocaine even before the 1980s as according to the Drug Enforcement Agency, “by the late 1970s there was a huge glut of cocaine powder being shipped into the United States.” [4] So, we have to ask this question: If the US government was waging a war on drugs in an attempt to keep drugs out of the country, then how did the country end up with a crack-cocaine epidemic in the ‘80s?

It is because that same government was waging a war of drugs via the Iran-Contra dealings under the Regan administration. While it has been ridiculed in mainstream thought as nothing more than a fringe conspiracy theory, there is an abundance of evidence that the Central Intelligence Agency aided in the transportation of cocaine into the United States.

In 1996, it was noted in Jet magazine that the CIA was having an independent investigator “look into allegations that the federal agency was involved in the flow of crack cocaine into Black communities during the late 1980s” and that CIA Director John M. Deutch “told more than a dozen [Congressional Black Caucus] members that he had no reason to believe allegations that the CIA funneled profits from a crack cocaine ring to aid anti-Communist guerrillas in Nicaragua (commonly known as the Contras) during the [1980s].” [5] It took two years for the findings to come out and when it finally did, the report relieved the Agency of all accusations. [6] However, when one begins to look at the information, it just doesn’t pan out to be true at all.

For example, on October 19, 1996, Peter Kornbluh, a Senior Analyst at the National Security Archive, gave a Congressional testimony in which he stated that “the U.S. government tolerated the trafficking of narcotics into this country by individuals involved in the contra war” and that

there is concrete evidence that U.S. officials-- White House, NSC and CIA--not only knew about and condoned drug smuggling in and around the contra war, but in some cases collaborated with, protected, and even paid known drug smugglers who were deemed important players in the Reagan administrations obsessed covert effort to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. [7] (emphasis added)

Kornbluh uses then-Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North’s diaries to provide evidence that North knew about the drug smuggling:

Oliver North's own diaries, and internal memoranda written to him from his contra contact, reveal explicit reports of drugs trafficking. On April 1, 1985, Oliver North was informed by his liaison with the contras, Robert Owen, that two of the commanders chosen by the FDN to run the southern front in Costa Rica were probably, or definitively "involved with drug running." […] On August 9, 1985, Oliver North was informed that one of the resupply planes being used by Mario Calero, the brother of the head of the largest contra group the FDN, was "probably being used for drug runs into [the] U.S." [8]

Adding to this, in July 1998, the New York Times came out with an article noting that the CIA knew that the contras were smuggling drugs. The article itself reads “The Central Intelligence Agency continued to work with about two dozen Nicaraguan rebels and their supporters during the 1980's despite allegations that they were trafficking in drugs, according to a classified study by the C.I.A.” and that the decisions to keep dealing with those agents, despite their drug trafficking “was made by top officials at headquarters in Langley, Va., in the midst of the war waged by the C.I.A.-backed contras against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista Government.” [9]

To put a final nail in the coffin, the US Department of Justice’ Office of the Inspector General published a special report in December 1997 noted that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee also known as the Kerry Commission led by Senator John Kerry, found that “it [was] 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.” [10] Thus, not only did the government know who was trafficking drugs into the US, but they also took an active role in transporting those drugs.

From this war on drugs, came mandatory minimum sentencing which, while many would say is due to white legislators, what isn’t as talked about is that there was also support for these harsh sentencing policies in the black community itself. Many black people supported the war on drugs as they “felt constantly under threat from addicts and others associated with the drug trade, and their calls for increased safety measures resonated at community meetings, in the pages of black newspapers like 'The Amsterdam News,' and in churches.” There was support from black people at the federal level as “members of the newly-formed Congressional Black Caucus met with President Richard Nixon, urging him to ramp up the drug war as fast as possible.” [11]

When the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which established both mandatory minimums and created the crack-cocaine/powder cocaine sentencing disparity by “[imposing] a five year mandatory minimum sentence for distribution of five grams of crack cocaine, enough to fill a sugar packet, while imposing the same sentence for 500 grams of powder cocaine,” the bill had support “from about half of the black Congressional caucus and many African American advocates.” [12] So we can see that many blacks played a role in enacting policies that would aid in the destruction and harm of their very community.

Now, does the involvement of black people in supporting and enacting these laws mean that the War On Drugs isn’t racist? No, not at all. For evidence of this, we only need to look at the attitudes of people regarding the modern-day heroin epidemic.

In April 2014, NBC News ran a number of stories on the growing heroin epidemic and a number of things stood out. First off “Drug users and their families [weren’t] vilified; there [was] no panicked call for police enforcement” and secondly, people becoming heroin addicts wasn’t “the result of bad parenting, the rise of single-parent families or something sick or deviant in white culture. It [wasn’t seen as] an incurable plague that is impossible to treat except with jail time.” [13] There is further evidence that there is a difference between the way blacks and whites are treated with regards to drugs as a number of white families who have been impacted by the heroin epidemic are “part of a growing backlash against the harsh tactics of traditional drug enforcement” and that politicians have reached a general consensus that “punishment is out and compassion is in” with people such as Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina “[telling] their own stories of loss while calling for more care and empathy.” [14] This clearly shows that the war on drugs, from the policies that were enacted to people’s support for it, was based mainly in a racial lens that demonized black and brown people, saying that there were inherent cultural problems in those communities whereas nowadays, with the heroin epidemic, the same language and policies are thrown to the way side. Heroin addicts are humanized and treated as people with a serious health problem rather than potential criminals.

The war on drugs led to another major issue: police militarization.

Read the next part: "Police militarization"