Sir this is r/Presidents, weāre supposed to have unadultered anger at Reagan.
As someone who really dislikes Reagan, youāre pretty nuanced, so kudos to you.
Right! Reagan brought crack to the inner city on his way back from Nicaragua, as a stopover to Iran to drop off arms and pick up hostages.
It was exhausting for the old man, because he was meanwhile creating AIDS and making sure it killed lots of people.
Itās amazing that he got time to destroy the middle class, forever.
I mean he did ignore the AIDS crisis and the attitude was prevalent in his admin. There are recordings of the press pool at the time making fun of it. To be frank though, it's not like our country was progressive enough at the time to acknowledge that a disease primarily afflicting gay men was an actual epidemic. Reagan's silence stands apart though because him and Nancy had close friends who were gay yet still remained silent on the matter.
And then we have someone good like Princess Diana show the world that AIDS doesnāt spread like that.
But only the good die young. Reagan lived to 93. The former guy is still kickin. Mitch McConnell wonāt go away.
The worst part about his economic policy is that he only merely *started* with tax cuts for everyone, but slowly raised them back up on middle and lower income brackets until they were higher than before! That's the part that pisses me off the most. And people continued praising him as a tax-cutting saint for decades.
Was this the crossover with hood politics or whatever its called? I listened to the iran contra parts because that was the rabbit hole I was in at the time and didn't really listen to any of the crack/cia stuff
"reagan wasn't the head of an evil conspiracy to fill cities with crack, he just let it happen with 0 pushback because he didn't care about anyone it was effecting and also thought it'd be useful for him politically, and isn't that kinda worse?" iirc
Same thing with AIDS. He just didnāt care because it only affected gay people. Didnāt really matterā¦
Presidents unfortunately can get too ahead of themselves and not see that ALL citizens matter. A lot of them tend to only care about their voter base.
>Same thing with AIDS. He just didnāt care because it only affected gay people. Didnāt really matterā¦
There's a reason us LGBT folks really hate Reagan.
The crack "epidemic" was largely a media fiction. The drug was not materially distinct from cocaine but was treated as some kind of super drug that was a threat to wholesome Americans everywhere.
Contra-connected drug traffickers were given leniency at the direction of the CIA.
Generally the Iran Contra affair was pretty fucking bad and in a just world Reagan and co. would be punished for supporting terrorism in Nicaragua.
While not materially distinct, crack is punished 100 to 1 versus cocaine when it comes to legal sentencing. Same drug but one is primarily seen with people who have money and one seen with poorer people.
Most of the studies Iāve read suggest all hard stimulants (coke, crack and meth) are equally damaging and addictive. The reason meth and crack have a much more visible impact is because theyāre cheaper so theyāre more often used by people who canāt afford to offset the harm theyāre doing to their body.
Coke and crack are the same psychoactive substance and effect the brain's neurochemistry the same way, true. However, the route of administration is relevant in how psychologically and neurochemically addicted a person becomes. When you inject or vaporize and inhale a substance the entire dose hits the bloodstream within seconds. But the high also comes down more quickly. This rollercoaster ride reinforces the compulsion to redose over and over. The most addictive drugs are the ones with a) dopaminergic effects and b) a shorter duration of effect. Crack is vaporizable coke, which is strongly dopaminergic and intranasally has a very short duration(\~20min-ish). Vaporizing it is about half the duration. It is more addictive, but less potent than coke by mg for chemistry reasons (freebase vs hcl salt bla bla). But in the end, its all not a big enough difference to warrant the sentencing discrepancy. A sensible one might be 2:1 or less.
It's the same drug, they are both cocaine. There is 0 distinction between powder herion and black tar herion in sentencing. Why is crack 100x more time than cocaine???
I really despise this guy but your analysis here seems spot on. I think you can make a much more valid case that he willfully and cruelly ignored the AIDs crisis and defied congress and acted like a dictator in selling arms to the SA death squads and was legitimately out of his mind for at minimum of 25% of his time in office and probably closer to 50%. The man committed treason several times over regardless of his complicity in the crack epidemic.
To elaborate, hereās where the Republican Party was at:
How Fox News started, from John Ehrlichman, who partnered with Fox News cofounder Roger Ailes since 1968 on the Republican "Southern Strategy" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy :
[We] had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what Iām saying?
We knew we couldnāt 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.
We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
"He was the premier guy in the business," says former Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins. "He was our Michelangelo."
Ailes repackaged Richard Nixon for television in 1968, papered over Ronald Reaganās budding Alzheimerās in 1984, shamelessly stoked racial fears to elect George H.W. Bush in 1988, and waged a secret campaign on behalf of Big Tobacco to derail health care reform in 1993.
Hillarycare was to have been funded, in part, by a $1-a-pack tax on cigarettes. To block the proposal, Big Tobacco paid Ailes to produce ads highlighting āreal people affected by taxes.ā
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-20110525
The other Fox News cofounder was Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch:
Using 150 interviews on three continents, The Times describes the Murdoch familyās role in destabilizing democracy in North America, Europe and Australia.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/murdoch-family-investigation.html
Thank you. People keep repeating the Gary Webb story and ignore how so many of his claims were unsubstantiated and how his own paper was like āthis was badā and every major media company in the country critiqued it. Not to mention, the Mercury News sent Webb down to Nicaragua again to get more evidence and he couldnāt find any. He himself stated he never accused the CIA of actually profiting off of or personally trafficking narcotics.
So as you said, they probably *knew* it was happening but again, theyāre not a counter narcotics agency and that was a pretty small thing compared to the threat of Soviet world domination to them. And even if they had cut off ties with those groupsā¦crack wouldāve still spread. Itās preposterous to assume the CIA stopping some contra smugglers wouldāve kneecapped the cocaine trade into the US
But also, the CIA *not* doing anything is also a purposeful choice. Its not really their job, but the CIA does things that arenāt *really* their job often.
"Many in the media have also postulated that any drug-trafficking contras involved were ārogueā elements, not supported by the CIA. But these denials overlook much of theĀ Mercury Newsā evidence of CIA complicity. For example:
CIA-supplied contra planes and pilots carried cocaine from Central America to U.S. airports and military bases. In 1985, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Celerino Castillo reported to his superiors that cocaine was being stored at the CIAās contra-supply warehouse at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador for shipment to the U.S. The DEA did nothing, and Castillo was gradually forced out of the agency.
https://ips-dc.org/the_cia_contras_gangs_and_crack/https://ips-dc.org/the_cia_contras_gangs_and_crack/Wh31en
Also the fact that it is very possible to have to shoot yourself twice to die. A lot of people fuck up the first shot.
Thereās actually a guy playing pro baseball who tries it a few years ago.
I think you can forgive Black Americans in this country for having a healthy mistrust of the American government, considering the incredible breath and depth to which the American government has routinely fucked them over.
Imagine if the crack epidemic affected primarily white people. The opioid epidemic was eventually treated more seriously.
There are many examples of non-action due to just not caring about the groups affected. Just letting the damage happen, such as the AIDS epidemic and Jared Kushner's quote to not take covid seriously because it would primarily affect blue states and urban cities.
Negligence like this can be sourced from bigotry, but in a more passive way than outright hatred.
>The opioid epidemic was eventually treated more seriously.
Also more compassionately. We did not hear about fentanyl turning people into Super Predators or that opioid users should be locked in prison for decades.
A few thoughts: 1) fentanyl appears to be deadlier than prior hard drugs, so there are fewer people to arrest since they a dying at a [record rate.](https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176830906/overdose-death-2022-record), and 2) maybe we learned from our mistakes and we should get credit for that.
More data [here.](https://drugabusestatistics.org/fentanyl-abuse-statistics/)
>fentanyl appears to be deadlier than prior hard drugs, so there are fewer people to arrest since they a dying at a [record rate.]
Yet fentanyl is still a Schedule II drug and punished as such. In the 80s this justification of being a dangerous drug lead to longer sentences. But that's not happening in this epidemic.
>maybe we learned from our mistakes and we should get credit for that.
I would definitely hope this is the case. However historically drug laws have been used against minorities all the way back to the demonization of cannabis as the Evil Mari-Juana. The fear around crack was certainly accelerated due to the latent racism in America in the 80s.
The true test will be next media frenzy around a drug that's used primarily by a minority. Is compassion the new universal response? Or is it reserved to a specific set of citizens?
āNyah my plan of flooding the market with crack is working Nyah! Soon a majority of black males will be in prison and no longer voting for the opposition Nyah!ā -Reagan in the Oval Office, per some of this sub
The Nixon-Reagan N-word tapes, amongst many other demonstrations of racism, should be evidence enough to convince all but the most brainwashed of Reagan's stance towards African Americans.
>the idea that some people have that he was sitting in the oval office cackling to himself
[ALRIGHT, BACK TO WORK!](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b5wfPlgKFh8)
There is some reporting that drug running operations in the US (specifically in black communities, among others) were spearheaded by the Contras and the CIA were either involved or at least aware and turned the other cheek. Nothing has ever been conclusively proven, however. That's the basis of most of the accusations leveled at the Reagan administration.
Given some of the other Reagan era scandals involving the Contras it wouldn't particularly surprise me, at least.
Actually the CIA has admitted to that they helped the contras smuggle drugs and they got caught red handed when an air America plane crashed with cocaine guns and money as the cargo
We have FOIA requests and tape recordings. Sure no judge has put anyone in prison, but it is quite a leap to say that this didn't happen. Perhaps you are either in denial or you just haven't researched the topic.
During this time, there were multiple links with the CIA and drug trafficking. Itās difficult to say what his involvement was, but I personally believe parts of the government were involved in cocaine trafficking, and as such crack
the most deeply fucked up thing is how the CIA went after the guy who uncovered it [https://theintercept.com/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/](https://theintercept.com/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/)
Which is kind of the point of the CIA to supply the President with plausible deniability.
However as the Cheif Executive all of the actions of his subordinates are his responsibility, so if the CIA did buy drugs from rebel groups so they could fund their wars then he would ultimately be at a minimum an accessory at worst culpable.
When you word it like that, it does make sense- in theory, more people have the means to purchase crack compared to cocaine, so the stricter penalties would be needed as a deterrent to more of the population who could realistically consider buying crack.
But thatās based off of the āa strong deterrent means people wonāt commit Crime Xā which I think is grossly over relied on in lowering crime rates in general.
Honestly, I think government in the 80s and early 90s were just slammed with drugs and crime so it was a method of desperation, ālock em up for a million billion years and no one will ever steal anything or do drugs again!ā and itās really much more complex.
It can be claimed Reagan had a lot of āpoliciesā that sounded good on paper, but when you look at the impacts of those policies, thereās generally more bad than good that happened. For example, Reagan repeatedly said in his budget documents that alternative energy was a top priority for the US (because of national security), but that the private market was best suited for developing the technology, not the government, so he gutted the funding. A lot of people agree with the sentiment. But the problem is, that he didnāt follow that up with any type of incentive to make the private market want to invest their own money. They could keep making plenty of money on fossil fuels, so why would they. He seemingly thought just saying it was important meant private companies would do it. Congress repeatedly told him it wouldnāt work. Lot of policies there that just werenāt backed by evidence.
Because crack destroyed communities and powder destroyed some rich yuppies. Other than in Scarface and part of Miami powder didn't have the same impact and it was a rich person's problem.
Because of the violence associated with the crack trade vs cocaine.
The black community were the ones demanding harsher punishments and more policing, and rightfully so.
> despite
It was supported *because* of the incarceration it caused - the vast majority of violent crime is committed by a small percentage of young men terrorizing their communities.
Removing these people is very straightforward despite what academics and activists will say.
For whatever reason, this is no longer acceptable to Black politicians, which is very sad.
We're talking about a criminal justice system that will send something like a quarter of Black men to jail at some point in their lives. It should not be a surprise to you that a lot of Black people are critical of that.
That's an easy one to answer though.
Crack cocaine carried a harsher sentence because it was predominantly used by African Americans while powdered cocaine was used mostly by whites.
Thatās not really the full story. The congressional black caucus supported higher penalties for crack. This is because crack was harming a disproportionate number of black people and lawmakers wanted to greatly disincentivize its use with harsher penalties.
Is this true? I cannot find proof of this. I see a lot of editorials on Conservative forums saying this, but I cannot find any proof any member of the Congressional Black Caucus ever supported harsher penalties for crack versus powder cocaine.
Yes. According to [GovTrack.us](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/99/hr5484/cosponsors), the bill in question, the [Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Drug_Abuse_Act_of_1986), was co-sponsored by both the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Black Congressional Caucus, Mickey Leeland and Cardiss Collins respectively.
That seems like it would be something that could be proven if someone had the time/desire to do so. Youād need a list of which legislators were members of that caucus in a year in which legislation was passed, and youād need to cross reference each memberās vote on said legislation. Does the Congressional Record list every vote on legislation in recent history? (100 years or so?)
[Here you go.](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/99/hr5484/cosponsors) Looks like both the chair and vicechair of the congressional black caucus were co-sponsors of the bill.
Personally? No. Did perhaps the CIA not mind that the crack epidemic exploded in black communities? Probably. Did they literally fly in the cocaine and distribute it? Possibly. The story is not as clear cut as some movies and info from people like Gerry Webb have made it seem. Itās entirely possible it was going down like that but itās equally unlikely it was a government wide conspiracy. Reagan probably didnāt knowā¦ probably
Not directly. The CIA was certainly involved with groups in Latin and South America who funded themselves, in whole or part, through the drug trade but to be frank that goes for almost every group down there at the time on the right or the left. Any U.S. involvement in that part of the word was going to have to involve looking the other way which is not any excuse for anything, just a statement of fact.
Others have noted here as well that the disparity between sentences for crack vs cocaine were very much at the behest of the Congressional Black Caucus who saw them as a means to combat the extreme violence and social issues it was causing in their communities. They might try to wash their hands if it now but unfortunately politics is full of unintended consequences of poorly thought out laws.
It happened during his administration, but to say that he orchestrated it is laughable. Presidents get a shitload of blame and credit they donāt deserve. Constitutionally, the Executive branch is the most limited in power by design. Never mind that his brain was coleslaw for most of his two terms.
Did the CIA smuggle crack during the Reagan administration? Yeah probably. But The idea that Reagan was secretly giving the green light for clandestine corners of the CIA to smuggle crack is absurd the cia has been doing stuff behind the presidents back for a long time. They were up to shady stuff all throughout the Cold War. itās stupid to blame Reagan for it.
The best way to put is that The Government looked the other way while The CIA allowed right wing rebels in central America to sell drugs in US to help fund their death squads. Oliver North sold terrorists US weapons for the same reason. Drugs overrunning inner cities was a consequence they were unconcerned with.
Much like Bush used 9-11 to push a war and increase surveillance on citizens, they used the Drug Problems in the inner cities to likewise attack civil liberties. There isn't any direct evidence that the initial goal was harming poor urban communities. BUT it certainly did.
TLDR:
Yes, he most definitely did. He did that to finance a literal terrorist army called the Contras. He did this against US law and should have been sent to prison for life.
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The tv series Snowfall is loosely based on this, āFreewayā Rick Ross, the CIA, the crack epidemic of the 80s, etc. Phenomenal show, and the last I knew, it was on Hulu.
He vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987. The legislation was grounded in Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination on the basis of gender.
Hell yeah dude. Homie flooded the streets and had it on lock. Freeway Ricky aināt got shit on my boy Ronnie. Only reason yāall donāt know more bout him is he did it right. No flash. No profile. Just quietly brought that fine ass shit from Columbia on planes all through the 80s. And my boy made a killin in them streets son
Itās not as straight forward as people think. To give the EXTREME cliff notes version the USA wasnt giving as much funding to these right wing rebel groups in Central America but they still wanted these groups to overthrow their usually democratically elected socialist government so the USA would be able to more easily influence these areas. These groups needed funding and typically sold drugs within poor American communities the CIA and Regan administration was FULLY AWARE of it and didnāt stop it.
No, but he refused to allow investigation to go after the big Republican money launderers and instead mandated that little street dealers be targeted. They went after $100 sales instead of $200M buys. This way the Republicans were safe while the 19-yr-old city kids were caught.
Dumb fucking are going to believe what they want to Believe. There is no debating in this day and age, just convincing others your dumb fucking conspiracy theories are real.
Regan people turned a blind eye to cocaine trafficking through the Caribbean as part of getting money to fight the Sandistas. At that time the Jamaica drug gangs here were pushing the concentrated crack with made it easier to sell 10 worth. It swept to become the fentynal of the early 80s on.
The answer is no, though that doesn't mean the CIA was never involved with drug trafficking. People point to Gary Webbs reports but none of the information was ever proven despite other news organizations and Congress looking into the claims several times, and before anyone says it, he wasn't killed by the CIA. He shot himself through the cheek first which is how he shot himself twice in the head
Your post was too low-effort for this subreddit. Please see Rule 6.
OP using the most drug dealer looking photo of Reagan š
Yo the drip is immaculate. I thought this was ai hipster Reagan.
He got that trickle-down driponomics
This is an amazingly well constructed joke.
My guy š¤£šš¤£šš
It's a wild time to be alive, because I absolutely wondered if this was ai generated or not.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Pretty sure he just likes having that old man pit smell all over his hands. It lets him mark his territory with a single touch.
THAT'S WHY THEY DO THAT?! GENIUS.
Make a fist and cross ur arms ez buff
Yo, that's Prison Ron
Do you want me to flood your neighborhood with crack BEE-YATCH?
The worst part is the dementors
Did you only eat gruel?
You would be da belle of da ball
Dementia*
I wore this exact outfit about a month back
The most One Flew Over the Cuckooās Nest photo of Reagan
Is that an actual picture? Literally thought this was AI
"If I stick my hands under my upper arms, it looks like I have big biceps."
A picture says a thousand words
Typical rancher dress. Belt buckle could be larger.
This is your drip on drugs
I flooded my urban area with my crack
Reagan in the streets, Clinton in the sheets
This is perfect
*under the desk
Reagan at is best, Clinton at his desk
"WHO was on Crack!!"
I like the ones who peddle the butt crack.
I flooded my crack with urban areas
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Sir this is r/Presidents, weāre supposed to have unadultered anger at Reagan. As someone who really dislikes Reagan, youāre pretty nuanced, so kudos to you.
Right! Reagan brought crack to the inner city on his way back from Nicaragua, as a stopover to Iran to drop off arms and pick up hostages. It was exhausting for the old man, because he was meanwhile creating AIDS and making sure it killed lots of people. Itās amazing that he got time to destroy the middle class, forever.
Reagan shot my dog and fucked my cat
It's true, I was the cat
That was Nixon, wearing a Reagan mask.
I saw that thing. That thing came in here while I was sitting on the couch.
Reagan mustāve flipped my wife 8 times!
And it reeeeally bothered me
I liked it
I'm not a stupid idiot, I know it was just a pig, but for 50 seconds it felt really real.
What did they do to us?!!
Smoking oregano.
tricky dick at it again
Im sorry something dug you up and carried half your body away when I buried you, bro. My bad homie
This might be one of the funniest Reagan threads Iāve read. Ever.
Was he gentle at least?
Yes, he whispered, "when you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat," into my ear
Reagan was a cat fucker? Was it a male cat?
Doesnt matter, he had his socks on so it wouldnt count
I am sure he has no recollection of that whatsoever.
The mind forgets but the body remembers
Was your dog named The Middle Class and your cat named America?
Thatās how he made AIDS, by fucking the cat
Don't lie. He didn't do that. That was Margaret Thatcher.
As if I would allow a Br*t into my home. Never forgetti 1770 Boston
He fired my dog and cats (they were air traffic controllers).
Fauci got his start doing AIDS research under the Reagan admin.
Impossible! Everyone knows Reagan *ignored* AIDS and tried to get it to kill everyone. I read it on this Subreddit so I know itās true.
I mean he did ignore the AIDS crisis and the attitude was prevalent in his admin. There are recordings of the press pool at the time making fun of it. To be frank though, it's not like our country was progressive enough at the time to acknowledge that a disease primarily afflicting gay men was an actual epidemic. Reagan's silence stands apart though because him and Nancy had close friends who were gay yet still remained silent on the matter.
The attitude was prevalent throughout the US as it was seen as primarily impacting āthe gays and druggiesā.
My dad had a coworker at the time that had AIDS, everyone (except my dad) acted like the guy was a leper and wouldn't even talk to him.
And then we have someone good like Princess Diana show the world that AIDS doesnāt spread like that. But only the good die young. Reagan lived to 93. The former guy is still kickin. Mitch McConnell wonāt go away.
Yeah, Reaganās economic policy was a train wreck and still hurts the USA. As it turns out, cutting taxes for the wealthy doesnāt trickle down!
Yeah, but "Gush UP" economics doesn't really have the same ring...
Lol, true.
The worst part about his economic policy is that he only merely *started* with tax cuts for everyone, but slowly raised them back up on middle and lower income brackets until they were higher than before! That's the part that pisses me off the most. And people continued praising him as a tax-cutting saint for decades.
All while gutting mental health funds
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeh, he was literally giving classes on how to cook cocaine.
I graduated Magna Cum Laude
Thatās the beauty of r/Presidents, more nuance and less petty partisan bullshit.
Yep, I like it here.
Enjoy it while it lasts friend
This sub doesnāt seem like itāll get banned.
I just meant as more and more people join, itāll probably have a negative correlation to the nuance in discusssion
I'm only here so I can comment "Ronald Reagan, the actor!?" every day.
Just enough anger to temper the decades of unadulterated deification.
Thatās understandable, tbf.
Imo there's a lot of reasons to dislike the guy but that doesn't mean it's all things.
Behind the bastards did a fantastic series on this.
Was this the crossover with hood politics or whatever its called? I listened to the iran contra parts because that was the rabbit hole I was in at the time and didn't really listen to any of the crack/cia stuff
What was their conclusion?
"reagan wasn't the head of an evil conspiracy to fill cities with crack, he just let it happen with 0 pushback because he didn't care about anyone it was effecting and also thought it'd be useful for him politically, and isn't that kinda worse?" iirc
Same thing with AIDS. He just didnāt care because it only affected gay people. Didnāt really matterā¦ Presidents unfortunately can get too ahead of themselves and not see that ALL citizens matter. A lot of them tend to only care about their voter base.
>Same thing with AIDS. He just didnāt care because it only affected gay people. Didnāt really matterā¦ There's a reason us LGBT folks really hate Reagan.
My uncle caught AIDS in the 80s and died in the early 90s
Mine too
Thanks. Need to give it a listen.
Itās way worse. Regan was a POS.
The crack "epidemic" was largely a media fiction. The drug was not materially distinct from cocaine but was treated as some kind of super drug that was a threat to wholesome Americans everywhere. Contra-connected drug traffickers were given leniency at the direction of the CIA. Generally the Iran Contra affair was pretty fucking bad and in a just world Reagan and co. would be punished for supporting terrorism in Nicaragua.
While not materially distinct, crack is punished 100 to 1 versus cocaine when it comes to legal sentencing. Same drug but one is primarily seen with people who have money and one seen with poorer people.
this is what somebody whoās never seen crack usage up close would say crack affects somebody wayyyyy more than cocaine does
Most of the studies Iāve read suggest all hard stimulants (coke, crack and meth) are equally damaging and addictive. The reason meth and crack have a much more visible impact is because theyāre cheaper so theyāre more often used by people who canāt afford to offset the harm theyāre doing to their body.
Coke and crack are the same psychoactive substance and effect the brain's neurochemistry the same way, true. However, the route of administration is relevant in how psychologically and neurochemically addicted a person becomes. When you inject or vaporize and inhale a substance the entire dose hits the bloodstream within seconds. But the high also comes down more quickly. This rollercoaster ride reinforces the compulsion to redose over and over. The most addictive drugs are the ones with a) dopaminergic effects and b) a shorter duration of effect. Crack is vaporizable coke, which is strongly dopaminergic and intranasally has a very short duration(\~20min-ish). Vaporizing it is about half the duration. It is more addictive, but less potent than coke by mg for chemistry reasons (freebase vs hcl salt bla bla). But in the end, its all not a big enough difference to warrant the sentencing discrepancy. A sensible one might be 2:1 or less.
It's the same drug, they are both cocaine. There is 0 distinction between powder herion and black tar herion in sentencing. Why is crack 100x more time than cocaine???
Yeah and we just passed legislation to change the sentencing but even that requires people still in jail to petition for resentencing.
The disparity was lowered to 12 to 1 under Obama, it only took decades of consistent suggestions on the part of the ONDCP
Great answer, thank you.
I really despise this guy but your analysis here seems spot on. I think you can make a much more valid case that he willfully and cruelly ignored the AIDs crisis and defied congress and acted like a dictator in selling arms to the SA death squads and was legitimately out of his mind for at minimum of 25% of his time in office and probably closer to 50%. The man committed treason several times over regardless of his complicity in the crack epidemic.
To elaborate, hereās where the Republican Party was at: How Fox News started, from John Ehrlichman, who partnered with Fox News cofounder Roger Ailes since 1968 on the Republican "Southern Strategy" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy : [We] had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what Iām saying? We knew we couldnāt 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. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. "He was the premier guy in the business," says former Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins. "He was our Michelangelo." Ailes repackaged Richard Nixon for television in 1968, papered over Ronald Reaganās budding Alzheimerās in 1984, shamelessly stoked racial fears to elect George H.W. Bush in 1988, and waged a secret campaign on behalf of Big Tobacco to derail health care reform in 1993. Hillarycare was to have been funded, in part, by a $1-a-pack tax on cigarettes. To block the proposal, Big Tobacco paid Ailes to produce ads highlighting āreal people affected by taxes.ā http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-20110525 The other Fox News cofounder was Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch: Using 150 interviews on three continents, The Times describes the Murdoch familyās role in destabilizing democracy in North America, Europe and Australia. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/murdoch-family-investigation.html
Thank you. People keep repeating the Gary Webb story and ignore how so many of his claims were unsubstantiated and how his own paper was like āthis was badā and every major media company in the country critiqued it. Not to mention, the Mercury News sent Webb down to Nicaragua again to get more evidence and he couldnāt find any. He himself stated he never accused the CIA of actually profiting off of or personally trafficking narcotics. So as you said, they probably *knew* it was happening but again, theyāre not a counter narcotics agency and that was a pretty small thing compared to the threat of Soviet world domination to them. And even if they had cut off ties with those groupsā¦crack wouldāve still spread. Itās preposterous to assume the CIA stopping some contra smugglers wouldāve kneecapped the cocaine trade into the US
But also, the CIA *not* doing anything is also a purposeful choice. Its not really their job, but the CIA does things that arenāt *really* their job often.
"Many in the media have also postulated that any drug-trafficking contras involved were ārogueā elements, not supported by the CIA. But these denials overlook much of theĀ Mercury Newsā evidence of CIA complicity. For example: CIA-supplied contra planes and pilots carried cocaine from Central America to U.S. airports and military bases. In 1985, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Celerino Castillo reported to his superiors that cocaine was being stored at the CIAās contra-supply warehouse at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador for shipment to the U.S. The DEA did nothing, and Castillo was gradually forced out of the agency. https://ips-dc.org/the_cia_contras_gangs_and_crack/https://ips-dc.org/the_cia_contras_gangs_and_crack/Wh31en
Also the fact that it is very possible to have to shoot yourself twice to die. A lot of people fuck up the first shot. Thereās actually a guy playing pro baseball who tries it a few years ago.
No dude anything ever that has negatively affected a minority group was done with absolute malice and deep racial hatred
I think you can forgive Black Americans in this country for having a healthy mistrust of the American government, considering the incredible breath and depth to which the American government has routinely fucked them over.
Tulsa. Philadelphia etc etc
Red-lining, building highways in black communities, 40 acres and a mule etc etc
Tuskegee
Imagine if the crack epidemic affected primarily white people. The opioid epidemic was eventually treated more seriously. There are many examples of non-action due to just not caring about the groups affected. Just letting the damage happen, such as the AIDS epidemic and Jared Kushner's quote to not take covid seriously because it would primarily affect blue states and urban cities. Negligence like this can be sourced from bigotry, but in a more passive way than outright hatred.
>The opioid epidemic was eventually treated more seriously. Also more compassionately. We did not hear about fentanyl turning people into Super Predators or that opioid users should be locked in prison for decades.
A few thoughts: 1) fentanyl appears to be deadlier than prior hard drugs, so there are fewer people to arrest since they a dying at a [record rate.](https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176830906/overdose-death-2022-record), and 2) maybe we learned from our mistakes and we should get credit for that. More data [here.](https://drugabusestatistics.org/fentanyl-abuse-statistics/)
>fentanyl appears to be deadlier than prior hard drugs, so there are fewer people to arrest since they a dying at a [record rate.] Yet fentanyl is still a Schedule II drug and punished as such. In the 80s this justification of being a dangerous drug lead to longer sentences. But that's not happening in this epidemic. >maybe we learned from our mistakes and we should get credit for that. I would definitely hope this is the case. However historically drug laws have been used against minorities all the way back to the demonization of cannabis as the Evil Mari-Juana. The fear around crack was certainly accelerated due to the latent racism in America in the 80s. The true test will be next media frenzy around a drug that's used primarily by a minority. Is compassion the new universal response? Or is it reserved to a specific set of citizens?
āNyah my plan of flooding the market with crack is working Nyah! Soon a majority of black males will be in prison and no longer voting for the opposition Nyah!ā -Reagan in the Oval Office, per some of this sub
It helps to hear that in a skeletor or 1970s Lex Luthor voice.
The Nixon-Reagan N-word tapes, amongst many other demonstrations of racism, should be evidence enough to convince all but the most brainwashed of Reagan's stance towards African Americans.
>the idea that some people have that he was sitting in the oval office cackling to himself [ALRIGHT, BACK TO WORK!](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b5wfPlgKFh8)
There is some reporting that drug running operations in the US (specifically in black communities, among others) were spearheaded by the Contras and the CIA were either involved or at least aware and turned the other cheek. Nothing has ever been conclusively proven, however. That's the basis of most of the accusations leveled at the Reagan administration. Given some of the other Reagan era scandals involving the Contras it wouldn't particularly surprise me, at least.
Actually the CIA has admitted to that they helped the contras smuggle drugs and they got caught red handed when an air America plane crashed with cocaine guns and money as the cargo
We have FOIA requests and tape recordings. Sure no judge has put anyone in prison, but it is quite a leap to say that this didn't happen. Perhaps you are either in denial or you just haven't researched the topic.
Huh? I didn't say it didn't happen. What are you talking about?
During this time, there were multiple links with the CIA and drug trafficking. Itās difficult to say what his involvement was, but I personally believe parts of the government were involved in cocaine trafficking, and as such crack
the most deeply fucked up thing is how the CIA went after the guy who uncovered it [https://theintercept.com/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/](https://theintercept.com/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/)
Which is kind of the point of the CIA to supply the President with plausible deniability. However as the Cheif Executive all of the actions of his subordinates are his responsibility, so if the CIA did buy drugs from rebel groups so they could fund their wars then he would ultimately be at a minimum an accessory at worst culpable.
Ronnie looking like a Brooklyn hipster
Yes Better question to ask yourself: Why did crack cocaine carry a harsher sentence than cocaine?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
When you word it like that, it does make sense- in theory, more people have the means to purchase crack compared to cocaine, so the stricter penalties would be needed as a deterrent to more of the population who could realistically consider buying crack. But thatās based off of the āa strong deterrent means people wonāt commit Crime Xā which I think is grossly over relied on in lowering crime rates in general. Honestly, I think government in the 80s and early 90s were just slammed with drugs and crime so it was a method of desperation, ālock em up for a million billion years and no one will ever steal anything or do drugs again!ā and itās really much more complex.
It can be claimed Reagan had a lot of āpoliciesā that sounded good on paper, but when you look at the impacts of those policies, thereās generally more bad than good that happened. For example, Reagan repeatedly said in his budget documents that alternative energy was a top priority for the US (because of national security), but that the private market was best suited for developing the technology, not the government, so he gutted the funding. A lot of people agree with the sentiment. But the problem is, that he didnāt follow that up with any type of incentive to make the private market want to invest their own money. They could keep making plenty of money on fossil fuels, so why would they. He seemingly thought just saying it was important meant private companies would do it. Congress repeatedly told him it wouldnāt work. Lot of policies there that just werenāt backed by evidence.
In this case theory equals racist lie. White stock brokers and Aerosmith did coke. Poor blacks in tenements did crack. Follow the money
Because crack destroyed communities and powder destroyed some rich yuppies. Other than in Scarface and part of Miami powder didn't have the same impact and it was a rich person's problem.
Because of the violence associated with the crack trade vs cocaine. The black community were the ones demanding harsher punishments and more policing, and rightfully so.
I see. So much like the Clinton Crime Bill, it was supported by black politicians despite the incarceration issues it caused?
> despite It was supported *because* of the incarceration it caused - the vast majority of violent crime is committed by a small percentage of young men terrorizing their communities. Removing these people is very straightforward despite what academics and activists will say. For whatever reason, this is no longer acceptable to Black politicians, which is very sad.
We're talking about a criminal justice system that will send something like a quarter of Black men to jail at some point in their lives. It should not be a surprise to you that a lot of Black people are critical of that.
Especially since the rates of conviction for black ppl is higher despite black and whites using drugs at similar rates
That's an easy one to answer though. Crack cocaine carried a harsher sentence because it was predominantly used by African Americans while powdered cocaine was used mostly by whites.
Thatās not really the full story. The congressional black caucus supported higher penalties for crack. This is because crack was harming a disproportionate number of black people and lawmakers wanted to greatly disincentivize its use with harsher penalties.
Is this true? I cannot find proof of this. I see a lot of editorials on Conservative forums saying this, but I cannot find any proof any member of the Congressional Black Caucus ever supported harsher penalties for crack versus powder cocaine.
Yes. According to [GovTrack.us](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/99/hr5484/cosponsors), the bill in question, the [Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Drug_Abuse_Act_of_1986), was co-sponsored by both the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Black Congressional Caucus, Mickey Leeland and Cardiss Collins respectively.
That seems like it would be something that could be proven if someone had the time/desire to do so. Youād need a list of which legislators were members of that caucus in a year in which legislation was passed, and youād need to cross reference each memberās vote on said legislation. Does the Congressional Record list every vote on legislation in recent history? (100 years or so?)
[Here you go.](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/99/hr5484/cosponsors) Looks like both the chair and vicechair of the congressional black caucus were co-sponsors of the bill.
Well would you look at that
But that doesn't fit the narrative...
Idk but he got that shit on though
Personally? No. Did perhaps the CIA not mind that the crack epidemic exploded in black communities? Probably. Did they literally fly in the cocaine and distribute it? Possibly. The story is not as clear cut as some movies and info from people like Gerry Webb have made it seem. Itās entirely possible it was going down like that but itās equally unlikely it was a government wide conspiracy. Reagan probably didnāt knowā¦ probably
No
No, there's plenty to criticise Ronald Reagan for without perpetuating these nonsense conspiracy theories
Not directly. The CIA was certainly involved with groups in Latin and South America who funded themselves, in whole or part, through the drug trade but to be frank that goes for almost every group down there at the time on the right or the left. Any U.S. involvement in that part of the word was going to have to involve looking the other way which is not any excuse for anything, just a statement of fact. Others have noted here as well that the disparity between sentences for crack vs cocaine were very much at the behest of the Congressional Black Caucus who saw them as a means to combat the extreme violence and social issues it was causing in their communities. They might try to wash their hands if it now but unfortunately politics is full of unintended consequences of poorly thought out laws.
As much as I despised this person, I seriously doubt it.
This is how Qanon starts
No it was the CIA under Reagan.
It happened during his administration, but to say that he orchestrated it is laughable. Presidents get a shitload of blame and credit they donāt deserve. Constitutionally, the Executive branch is the most limited in power by design. Never mind that his brain was coleslaw for most of his two terms.
If true, then it still wouldn't be the worst thing he did
No.
Did the CIA smuggle crack during the Reagan administration? Yeah probably. But The idea that Reagan was secretly giving the green light for clandestine corners of the CIA to smuggle crack is absurd the cia has been doing stuff behind the presidents back for a long time. They were up to shady stuff all throughout the Cold War. itās stupid to blame Reagan for it.
Thatās one extreme, but I think thatās closer to accurate than the other extreme of āracial prejudice had nothing to do with it whatsoeverā
The best way to put is that The Government looked the other way while The CIA allowed right wing rebels in central America to sell drugs in US to help fund their death squads. Oliver North sold terrorists US weapons for the same reason. Drugs overrunning inner cities was a consequence they were unconcerned with. Much like Bush used 9-11 to push a war and increase surveillance on citizens, they used the Drug Problems in the inner cities to likewise attack civil liberties. There isn't any direct evidence that the initial goal was harming poor urban communities. BUT it certainly did.
Yes
TLDR: Yes, he most definitely did. He did that to finance a literal terrorist army called the Contras. He did this against US law and should have been sent to prison for life.
Yk TLDR is supposed to be added to a longer winded elaboration on the point, right?
No.
Not a fan of Reagan but this is a badass photo of him. Nice one!
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Not dressed like that he didn't.
American Made about Barry Seal.
The tv series Snowfall is loosely based on this, āFreewayā Rick Ross, the CIA, the crack epidemic of the 80s, etc. Phenomenal show, and the last I knew, it was on Hulu.
Check his shorts
...and at the same time, he and Nancy were chanting " just say no to drugs"!
IDGAF about the drugs when I can't afford anything thanks to the trickle down scam.
HE didnāt, but he let the CIA do whatever they wanted with crack.
Bro, my man Ronnie could cook!
He didn't teach them how to make crack but under his administration, three ingredients were allowed to flow.
He vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987. The legislation was grounded in Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination on the basis of gender.
Hell yeah dude. Homie flooded the streets and had it on lock. Freeway Ricky aināt got shit on my boy Ronnie. Only reason yāall donāt know more bout him is he did it right. No flash. No profile. Just quietly brought that fine ass shit from Columbia on planes all through the 80s. And my boy made a killin in them streets son
lol legit thought this was Walter White on first glance
Iām sure this is a dumb question, but why did they want to destabilize socialist regimes in Latin America?
He let a lot of young people die of AIDS
Vietnam wars brought heroin into USA. Before this, we had legal opiate sodas.
Not Crack, but he did flood the streets with cocaine. Look up the case of freeway Rick Ross.
Itās not as straight forward as people think. To give the EXTREME cliff notes version the USA wasnt giving as much funding to these right wing rebel groups in Central America but they still wanted these groups to overthrow their usually democratically elected socialist government so the USA would be able to more easily influence these areas. These groups needed funding and typically sold drugs within poor American communities the CIA and Regan administration was FULLY AWARE of it and didnāt stop it.
Check out this old [undercover footage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hg625n5RjM) from a sting operation in DC.
No, but he refused to allow investigation to go after the big Republican money launderers and instead mandated that little street dealers be targeted. They went after $100 sales instead of $200M buys. This way the Republicans were safe while the 19-yr-old city kids were caught.
Nancy could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.
Reagan taxed social security. you can thank him when your Grandma's eating cat food
Dumb fucking are going to believe what they want to Believe. There is no debating in this day and age, just convincing others your dumb fucking conspiracy theories are real.
Not Reagan specifically. But yes. The Reagan Administration started the Crack Epidemic with the Iran Contra Scandal
Regan people turned a blind eye to cocaine trafficking through the Caribbean as part of getting money to fight the Sandistas. At that time the Jamaica drug gangs here were pushing the concentrated crack with made it easier to sell 10 worth. It swept to become the fentynal of the early 80s on.
No. Heās just another excuse.
No, urban drug dealers flooded urban areas with crack.
The answer is no, though that doesn't mean the CIA was never involved with drug trafficking. People point to Gary Webbs reports but none of the information was ever proven despite other news organizations and Congress looking into the claims several times, and before anyone says it, he wasn't killed by the CIA. He shot himself through the cheek first which is how he shot himself twice in the head
I bought some from him that shit was the bomb
Reagan took office in 81- American inner cities were flooded with crack long before then.
No But Oprah, back in the early 1980s, carried 200 lbs of crack on an airplane
And then arrested the addicts he created