Opinion

Crack and the CIA

By DOUGLAS LUMMIS

One of the worst catastrophes to hit the United States in recent years is crack cocaine. This is the drug that has destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of young people, mostly poor, mostly black. This is the drug that has brought about a population explosion in U.S. prisons.

In recent years the government has spent billions of dollars to fight drugs, especially crack. But now there is evidence that the government was one of the original forces promoting the crack industry.

In a well-documented three-part article, the San Jose Mercury News (Aug. 18, 19, 20) alleged that the crack industry in the U.S. was promoted by people working under the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Here's their story:

The key person was Danilio Blandon. Blandon is Nicaraguan, the son of a family of rich slumlords, has an M.A. in marketing, and was a supporter of the bloody dictator Anastasio Somoza. When the revolutionary Sandinistas overthrew Somoza's dictatorship, Blandon, then 29, escaped to California.

Horrified by the Sandinistas' "persecutions" (in other words, the confiscation of property from Nicaragua's super-rich), Blandon joined the movement to overthrow the Sandinistas. He began supporting a group called Fuerza Democratica Nicaraguense (FDN), a "contra" group that was being formed with money and support from the CIA.

It was illegal, of course, for the U.S. government to give financial support to the contras. The U.S. Congress had passed a resolution forbidding it, and such interference in another country's internal affairs is, in any case, against international law. Nevertheless, on Dec. 1, 1981, President Reagan issued a secret order authorizing the CIA to give such support.

But the money the CIA could provide was not enough. This is where Blandon made his contribution. He contacted Somoza supporter Norwin Meneses, known in Nicaragua as "The King of Drugs." Meneses was able to supply Blandon with almost unlimited amounts of cocaine from Columbia. Then Blandon used his marketing abilities to sell it in the U.S. The money was used to buy weapons to smuggle to the contras.

In those days pure cocaine was so expensive that only the rich could afford it. But Blandon needed a mass market. Using new techniques, Blandon had his distributors (L.A. gangs) reprocess the cocaine into crack which, at $20 (¥2,180) a hit, is cheap enough to sell to the poor. At the high point of his business Blandon was selling up to 100 kilograms of cocaine a week which, as crack, sometimes brought in as much as $2 or $3 million a day.

This, says the San Jose Mercury News, was the chief organization behind the U.S. crack catastrophe.

Blandon has never been tried in court. In 1991 he was arrested, but the charges were dropped at the request of the Federal Government. Today he has a highly paid job working for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). His specialty is collecting information on Mexican and Columbian drug lords ― his old business partners.

Shukan ST: Oct. 11, 1996

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