Dark Alliance by Gary Webb and His Apparent Suicide

Gary Webb: A Legacy Cut Short

Gary Webb’s career came to a permanent, premature conclusion on December 10th, 2004. The American, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist’s life ended due to an apparent suicide, consisting of multiple gunshot wounds (Los Angeles Times, 2004). Webb, best known for his exposé, “Dark Alliance,” provides a grueling narrative of the governmental motivation for engaging in disinformation about the “crack” cocaine epidemic. This epidemic was predominantly located in African-American communities of Southern California and spread across a majority of cities in the United States, eventually residing in all but four states (Webb, 1998).

'Dark Alliance' by Gary Webb and His Apparent Suicide

Many major media outlets sought to discredit Webb’s work, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Mercury News (Kornbluh, 2004). Cocaine, a derivative of crack, is an already extremely addictive drug on its own: once freebased, cocaine in turn becomes what is known as crack. Freebasing a drug, simply put, is the removal of foreign adulterants, breaking the substance down to its purest form. The rock that ensues from this process gives users an intense high that could last from five up to thirty minutes. Crack rewires the chemical balance in the brain, compelling returning users to increase their dosage to achieve the same high. Prolonged use of the drug can result in permanent effects, spanning from severe tooth decay and damage to blood vessels in the brain to the illusion that bugs are burrowing under the skin, just to name a few (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2020).

Webb’s book not only exposed the American government’s intentions of undermining black America at the time, but he also provided evidence that the profit gained from crack sales in the US was used to fund the Nicaraguan guerrilla army, “Fuerza Democratica Nicaraguense,” hence killing two birds with one stone. Translated to English, the “Nicaraguan Democratic Force” (FDN for short) were originally small, individual groups of expatriates who all shared one common denominator: a distaste for their government. Often referred to as Contra killers, these groups were unified by the CIA in hopes of overthrowing the established socialist government of Nicaragua. The FDN were known to be savages, implementing terrorist-like tactics, and clocking in with more than thirteen hundred terrorist acts during their reign (Scott, 2003). The FDN is now a thing of the past, and hardly anyone thinks about the sins committed; some communities were never able to fully recover from this ripple in time.

The Impact on African-American Communities

Lower-income regions of California felt the consequences more than anyone, and the system is to blame. The government not only turned its back on African-American citizens but developed a despicable strategy to restrict minorities from advancing in society. Nearly everyone involved in court cases concerning drug trafficking was black, and nearly everyone was convicted. Thousands of black men are serving ludicrous prison sentences for mistakes made decades ago. Mistakes that would not have been made otherwise if not for the CIA and their barbaric, cruel, ruthless ways of repressing part of the population. Hundreds of people are living on the streets of Los Angeles, one reason being that they give every cent they can muster to their addiction. Crack was practically unheard of before the ineffable prevailing in South-Central. Black citizens cannot be held responsible; the public received a drug that promised the high of one's life, and on top of getting that kind of offer, having prices dirt cheap was just the cherry on the cake (Alexander, 2012).

The Media’s Role and Webb’s Enduring Legacy

The public eye was led to believe that after having dealt with the loss of his job, as well as his passion for writing, Webb became severely depressed; resulting in his demise. What is truly puzzling is the fact that his body was found with more than one gunshot wound to the head, leading many to ponder if he really did commit suicide (Cockburn, 2004). Subsequently, efforts taken by mass media aiming to discredit Webb’s findings, as well as the legitimacy of the rest of his work as a journalist, ultimately succeeded. The media destroyed his reputation as a writer, but his book helped shed much-needed light on drugs and shows what kind of condition the world is really in. Despite the efforts to tarnish his reputation, Webb’s work continues to spark discussions about the intersection of drug policy, race, and government accountability.

References

• Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press.
• Cockburn, A. (2004, December 13). The Death of Gary Webb. CounterPunch. Retrieved from https://www.counterpunch.org/2004/12/13/the-death-of-gary-webb/
• Kornbluh, P. (2004, December 19). The Gary Webb Story. The Nation. Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/gary-webb-story/
• Los Angeles Times. (2004, December 11). Gary Webb, 49; Wrote of CIA Link to Crack Cocaine. Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-dec-11-me-webb11-story.html
• National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2020, June). Cocaine DrugFacts. Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/cocaine
• Scott, P. D. (2003). Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
• Webb, G. (1998). Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press.