Carla Gericke

The 2021 Netflix documentary film, Crack: Cocaine, Corruption and Conspiracy [trailer], explores the complex history of the 1980’s crack epidemic and the devastating legacy it left behind, including the largest prison population in the world.

The story you’ve heard before as depicted in pop culture: “Cocaine,” the cool “Wall Street” party drug used mostly by White people on weekends. vs. “Crack,” the super addictive “ghetto rock” used mostly by Black folks all day long, turning mothers into dick-sucking whores and teenagers into slingers and gang bangers. And don’t forget, the crack babies! (We’ll get to that Big Lie in a bit.)

By the time Tip o’Neal, four weeks before the 1986 election, rushes through the Anti-Drug Abuse Act that introduces mandatory minimum sentences, this disparity between “cocaine” and “crack” is written into the law: 5 grams of crack is treated as the equivalent of 500 grams of cocaine.

Due to harsh policing in America’s inner cities, despite the fact that two-thirds of crack users at the time are White, tens of thousands of predominantly Black people are sent to prison for long, long periods of time, decimating communities and tearing families apart, more so than the drugs themselves.

Face it, when the government tries to “fix something,” it generally makes things worse.

If drugs are bad–and many are, but, you know, maaaaaaaybe if we told THE TRUTH about different drugs instead of spouting the standard bullshit that “they are all equally bad” (they are not; some actually expand consciousness and heal trauma if used therapeutically) then THE GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO DRUGS IS A GAZILLION TIMES WORSE.

Know what’s worse than a cracked-out mom? A cracked-out mom you never get to see again. Destroying families in the name of “saving” them is exactly what is wrong with the criminal “justice” system.

Government will always suck because it negates individualism and cannot accommodate any form of forgiveness into its system. The government judges you at your lowest, weakest moment, and then harshly punishes you for unjust periods of time for that moment.

I was struck how many of the interviewed women said they had turned to drugs to deal with previous traumas, and then unwittingly became addicted only to thereafter be further traumatized by being treated like criminals. Instead of being given help, instead of being compassionately treated like patients in need of medical intervention, they were treated like scum.

Crack, it’s one helluva addictive drug. Know what else is one helluva addictive drug that no one wants to talk about? The government’s growing addiction to controlling every single aspect of our lives…

Agents of the state, bureaucrats and politicians, never want to talk about their own destructive addiction to power and control. They don’t want to talk about their claimed superiority and elitism. They don’t want to talk about needing their fix by forcing you to follow their ever-increasing “laws.”

This desire to control is a disease that is manifesting in a sick, dependent underclass, which is, sadly, accelerating under the “Everything Will Be Free But Me” generation.

In the film, it strikes me as ironic that the Control Freaks think they are “helping” and that they think by “expressing their intolerance,” (btw, laws aren’t “expressions” or “suggestions”; they backed by people with guns) they would be able to rid America of “the scourge” of crack at the exact same time their brethren in the CIA are shipping these drugs into the country on planes coming back from illegal weapon drops with the Sandinistas.

This is, of course, a prime example of the left and right hand of the state not knowing what they’re doing (hidden under the cloak of “national security,” where so many illegal activities are parked) but one thing is certain: the folks in the middle always get screwed.

But back to them “crack babies.” Turns out even that story was mostly made up by a Dr. Ira Chasnoff, who has now done a two-year follow-up study that disavows his original mythological “crack baby” findings. Today he says, “Their average developmental functioning level is normal. They are no different from other children growing up. They are not the retarded imbeciles people talk about.”

Much like other propaganda operations run through a clueless or complicit media, like the “incubator babies” used to lie Americans into a war against Iraq, the “Satanic metalhead kids” supposedly murdering their fellow schoolmates, or, even SIDS babies (are you starting to see the manipulative theme here?), the myth of crack babies, and mothers who would do this to their own offspring, fueled even harsher cruelty against people who needed compassion and help.

Bring in the Clintons, and you know things aren’t going to get better. Bill says he’s going to get even “tougher,” and under him, police are militarized into soldiers smashing down doors in midnight raids. Spending on the “War on Drugs” increases 40%.

The movie unfortunately glosses over much of the history about the CIA running cocaine into America’s inner cities. It touches on the investigation, but doesn’t delve heavily into it. There are other movies and Youtubes that you can consult to learn more about this fascinating indictment of the Deep State. I’d start with Gary Webb, the San Jose reporter who mysteriously “committed suicide” years before #JeffreyEpsteinDidn’tKillHimself. His own words here or watch Kill the Messenger (2014).

For me, the movie spends a bit too long emphasizing the negative impacts of crack and cocaine, but this was clearly an editorial choice to help build empathy–the “save the cat” screenwriting technique. I’ll also admit it was cool to see Freeway Rick Ross, who I met briefly at Anarchapulco in 2020, in the movie, and the song “Sound da Police” by KRS-One, who I invited to PorcFest in 2010 and he almost came, is on the soundtrack.

I was more interested in the government’s involvement and the “conspiracies” portion of the movie, and it felt a bit like they ran out of time to cover all of this, but all in all, Crack: Cocaine, Corruption and Conspiracy is a solid offering in the “Government Malfeasance: War on Drugs” category of documentary filmmaking.