Dark Alliance by Gary Webb and His Apparent Suicide

Gary Webb’s career came to a permanent, premature conclusion, ending, December 10th, 2004. The American, Pulitzer Prize-winning, investigative journalist’s life concluded due to apparent suicide, consisting of multiple gunshot wounds. Webb, best-known for his exposé, “Dark Alliance” gives a grueling narrative of the Governmental motivation for engaging in disinformation about the “crack” cocaine epidemic. Located predominantly in the African-American communities of southern California and spreading across a majority of cities in the United States; the epidemic was thought to reside in all but four states.

Many major media outlets seeked to discredit Webb’s work, including: The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Mercury News. Cocaine, a derivative of crack, is an already extremely addictive drug on its own: Once freebased, cocaine in turn becomes what is know as crack. The act of freebasing a drug simply put, is the removal of foreign adulterants, breaking the substance down to the purest form. The rock that ensues from this process gives users an intense high that could last 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. Prolong use of the drug can result in permanent effects, spanning from severe tooth decay, damage to blood vessels in the brain, to the illusion that bugs are burrowing themselves under the skin, just to name a few.

Webb’s book, not only at the time exposed the American Government of it’s intentions of undermining black America, he also provided evidence that the profit gained from crack sells in the US were 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, the 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, implemented terrorist-like tactics, clocking in with more than thirteen hundred terrorist acts during their reign. The FDN is now a thing of the past and hardly anyone thinks on the sins committed, some communities were never able to fully recover from this ripple in time.

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 restricting minorities from advancing in society. Nearly everyone involved with 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 had it not been for the CIA and the barbaric, cruel, ruthless ways they repress part of the population. Hundreds of people are living on the streets of Los Angeles, one reason why being 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 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.

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. Subsequently, effort 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.