Anyone notice how the Crack Epidemic sort of ended when the Contra wars ended?

[Toots]

Now that the Contra Wars are not going on there is no need to raise such large amounts of untraceble money and no steady flights going back and forth to Central America. Besides a good deal of black Americans have already been convicted of felonies so can never vote again. I would say that the Crack idea was a resounding success for the GOP. Wonder what they can do with Afghanistan Opium to make it afforable for Black America? Apparently since America has been involved in their country the Opium crops have reached an all time record level..

[havocmom]

1. Gang wars in US slowed to near stop when 41 got tossed out of office too

Always more violent crime when there is a bush in the WH.

bad economy for all but the top 2% + hopelessness = bodies dropping. Happens when there is a bush in the Oval.

[aquart]

3. Yup. Murder's on the upswing in NY, too.

[blm]

8. Watch American Gangster documentary on BET. It is obvious Poppy Bush committed

crimes against black communities as well as crimes against the constitution, and the even sadder part is that Bill Clinton covered up and downplayed those crimes and continued to deny access to the CIA documents that corroborated Gary Webb's reporting when the story was uncovered in 1996.

I think too many black leaders who support Clinton have ignored his role in the coverup. What part of WH stonewalling and denying the story in 1996 don't they understand?

[unpossibles]

2. Just say no

bullshit

EDIT:
I am not saying you're full of it, I am saying our drug policies and Iran-Contra are.

[SpiralHawk]

4. "Smirk, smirk, smirk." - Commander AWOL

I would love to explain all this to you noisy proles, but only
'elite' members of my darkside occult cabal get to know what's
really going on. Smirk, smirk, smirk." - Commander AWOL

[shadowknows69]

5. Crack hasn't gone anywhere in our town I assure

it's just been joined by its cousins Meth and Heroin.

[SpiralHawk]

9. "Smirk, smirk, smirk." - Commander AWOL

[Nevernever]

6. Unfortunately for the GOP, meth is much cheaper than heroin...

[NashVegas]

7. A Shame Meth Picked Up Where Crack Left Off, Though

..

[Toots]

12. I don't think so.

I think Meth is found more in suburbs and small towns throughout America. More a spoiled white man's drug. I think Crack was designed for the black man and distributed throughout the inner cities while cocaine in it's normal form remained the white kids drug. Now Meth on the other hand is very easily made in your kitchen and does not need to be imported so GOP doesn't have a handle on it. There was no "Plan" behind the Meth epidemic where the Crack episode was well planned and executed and it was very successful. A lot of GOP goals were accomplished. Untraceble money for their Contra War and untold felonies for the black community to rob them of their voting rights. Also to get a lot of black men off the streets to protect their white women folk... Meth seems far more in white neighborhoods than black...

[blm]

13. You are SO right about the many benefits reaped by BushInc for this operation.

And it ALL would have come out in the open when it was reported by Gary Webb in 1996 if the Clinton WH had come down on the side of truth instead of choosing to protect Poppy Bush's secrecy and privilege - so they targeted Webb for a takedown and denied and downplayed his report.

[rinsd]

14. Meth is a spoiled white man's drug?

Are you even remotely familiar with meth?

[kineneb]

18. Meth- poor white man's drug, since the 60s

when the Hells Angels were cooking it up in the San Joaquin Valley. For those who can, remember the "speed kills" anti-drug campaign?

Meth- nasty super-addictive drug which could/can be made from everyday chemicals; creating even nastier hazmat situation in its wake. Prohibitions on OTC cold medicines will not stop its production.

The crack epidemic... see Gary Webb's book: Dark Alliance. Just because the press and gov. discredited him does not change the fact that he was right. RIP Gary.

[Swamp Rat]

10. Replaced by Meth

[The Cleaner]

11. Read "Crossing the Rubicon."

n/t

[kineneb]

19. or "Dark Alliance" n/t

[peacetalksforall]

15. Get those minority males off the street and on to the concrete of a

prison. All horizontal and vertical - they don't deserve more, especially not rehabilitation. Minorities are only good for the profit that results from running the drugs and prisons - profits for the friends, operatives, and those in government or institutions who sanction and facilitate it.

[tehehehe]

16. "Crack" did not come from Central America......

Crack is a form of coacaine. Cocaine was and is illegally imported into the US. Once it is "in-country" it is further processed to produce "crack".

The Reagan administation tried to stem the flow of cocaine into the US. That effort is continuing. A major step forward was accomplished when the U.S. invaded Panama and removed the head of the police in that nation (Manuel Antonio Noriega). He was orchestrating the transshipment of cocaine to the US through a variety of means of transportation. Some powdered cocaine came from Central America, but most came from South America.

Once the Central American nations threw off the criminal, Cuban-affiliated, regimes and installed democratic institutions, the production and smuggling of cocaine through Central American nations was significantly reduced. This required drug smugglers to find other means of continuing their trade in coacaine. Now they use Carribean contacts (Haiti, primarily) as trans-shipment locations.

The increased penalties imposed for possession of "crack" versus powdered cocaine also had an impact of reducing the use of this powerful drug. A few high-profiled cases of crack victioms (such as the near-death of Richard Pryor and the actual death of Chris Farley) also served to make the drug less popular.

The danger today is that the nations of Venezuela and Boliva, led by socialists who advocate the growth of coca plants by farmers, will re-ignite the cocaine epidemic that afflicted the US in the 80's and 90's.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-coca8feb08,1,2127352.story?coll=la-headlines-world
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0702080093feb08,1,1790100.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

[Bandit]

17. Are you sure you are on the right board? Why did we invade Panama?

What did we find so disturbing about Noriega? Crack is freebased from cocaine using baking soda. It provides a very cheap quick high that even "inner city" people could afford. $5.00 a high. Try and buy cocaine for five dollars. I think you should learn a bit about a few things before speaking with such authority. US Customs reported major shipments of cocaine being brought into America by CIA.. Why would CIA be bringing major ship[ments of cocaine into America? It was during the Reagan Whitehouse that this occured..

[High Plains]

21. Jesus, what a load of crap!

1. Reagan administration officials were in cahoots with Contra drug runners bringing cocaine into the country. Remember your hero Ollie North?

2. The Reagan administration's blockade of South Florida cocaine trafficking corridors did not reduce the cocaine supply, but merely diverted the traffic into Mexico. Suddenly, what had been traditional, family-run, small-scale pot smuggling operations blossomed into the fabulously wealthy and horrifically violent Mexican drug cartels we know these days.

3. Despite the arrest of Noreiga, Panama remains a major drug money center.

4. "Criminal, Cuban-affiliated regimes"!?!? I assume you are referring to the Sandinistas, and man, are your reactionary colors showing. Why don't you talk about the coke smuggling out of Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador? And tell me about the "significantly reduced" cocaine smuggling in Guatemala these days, why don't you?

5. The increased penalties for crack cocaine were conceived in hysteria and bigotry and served to imprison tens of thousands of Americans, almost all of them black, for years and decades. Meanwhile, crack continues to be used by hundreds of thousands of Americans.

6. Farmers have been growing coca in the Andes for thousands of years. The president of Bolivia, a former coca farmer himself, seeks to preserve his country's traditions while working with the US to fight against the cocaine traffic. Venezuela grows no cocaine, but has signed a deal to import coca products (flour, pastries, tea, toothpaste) in a bid to broaden legal coca markets. Each leaf that goes to legal markets is one leaf that doesn't go to the cocaine trade. The fact that Chavez and Morales are socialists isn't really relevant as far as I can tell.

7. I'm suprised you didn't mention Red China's role in making America a nation of heroin addicts.

Get thee back to the John Birch Society, from which you have obviously strayed.

[Ghost in the Machine]

20. Crack hasn't gone anywhere, it's just not a sensational story anymore.

unless a celebrity or athelete dies from it. Much like the meth epidemic here in East Tennessee. We used to hear of at least 2 meth lab busts per day on the news, and it was headlines in the local papers. Now we hardly ever hear it on the news unless it was a major lab, and it is back page filler in the local papers.

Ghost