Narcos focused on the DE's quest to capture Pablo, while omitting the CIA's complicity in cocaine trafficking throughout that time. DEA agent Steve Murphy was Pablo's nemesis from episode one, but Murphy only arrived in Colombia in 1991, so his presence in all of the Pablo-related events from 1976 to 1991 is fictional. Murphy was a minion of Pablo's real nemesis: George HW Bush.
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Throughout the 1980s, the Reagan-Bush administration launched an expansion of the War on Drugs. The "Just say no" campaign was funded largely by tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical companies. The government claimed that the war was necessary to take down the Pablos of this world, but its burden fell mostly on hundreds of thousands of non-violent marijuana users, many of whom were SWAT-team raided and dragged off to jail.
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Reagan's wife,Nancy, was a leading spokesperson: "If you're a casual drug user, you're an accomplice to murder." The campaign, in combination with sensational head-lines about rabid black crack users murdering white people, prostituting themselves for a pittance and giving birth to malnourished alien-like babies caused public opinion about drugs to swing in favour of the zero tolerance policies that filled prisons with non violent drug users from the poorest neighbourhoods. Private prisons and all of the industries that grew up around them became a massive source of profit for the politicians taking contributions from them.
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In 1982, Ronald Regan created the South Florida Task Force, headed by George HW Bush. It combined elements of the FBI, army and Navy to fight traffickers who weren't working with the CIA. The media published images of soldiers, surveillance planes and helicopter gunships off the coast of Florida, waging war with Pablo's smugglers. As drug seizures rose, Reagan and Bush posed for photos amid tons of confiscated cocaine, and proclaimed their success in the War on Drugs. They never mentioned that the price of cocaine in America was falling despite the gunboats, a sure sign that the supply into America was increasing. Even DEA agents complained that the War on Drugs was just a handover of money to the military.
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In 1983, a program called Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) started in American schools. Students were encouraged to let the police know about their friends' and families' drug habits, so they could swiftly be incarcerated. The Reagan-Bush administration doubled the federal prison population. Young offenders and non-violent drug users were sent to Special Alternative Incarceration boot camps to have their rebellious attitudes demolished. They often emerged traumatised and more inclined to take drugs.
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Simultaneously, the Reagan-Bush administration quietly instructed American universities to destroy all of the research into marijuana undertaken between 1966 and 1976, which could have benefited people with a range of ailments, including cancer patients at risk of death because they couldn't eat, and children born with rare conditions who had hundreds of seizures a week and were at risk of entering comas and dying.
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The federal government used planes to illegally spray marijuana fields in Kentucky, Georgia and Tennessee with the toxic weed-killer Paraquat, risking the lives of marijuana smokers. Banned in several European countries, Paraquat is highly toxic to animals and has serious and irreversible delayed effects if absorbed. As little as one teaspoonful of the active ingredient is fatal. Death occurs up to thirty days after ingestion. It's also toxic if absorbed through the skin, and can cause nose bleeding if inhaled. No antidote for poisoning exists although it is recommended that hospitalisation is sought without delay. The government was able to use it by classifying it as having low acute toxicity when sprayed.
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Reagan's Drugs Czar, Carlton Turner, said that kids deserved to die as a punishment for smoking poisoned weed, to teach them a lesson. Two years later, he called for the death penalty for all drug users. On one occasion, the DEA had been ordered to spray Paraquat on a marijuana plantation in Georgia, but the Forest Service had miscalculated the location. The Paraquat ended up on a corn crop. Drugs Czar Turner was a co-owner of a patent, along with the University of Mississippi, on a chemical test that detected the presence of Paraquat on crops. Although he stood to earn royalties from the patent, he denied any conflict of interest.
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Extending the War on Drugs into Colombia included dropping chemical poisons on peasants and their crops. Many had to leave the little pieces of land they owned, and they were reduced to begging. Their land often ended up in the hands of the wealthy and foreign corporations.
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By 1986, officials in Florida acknowledged that the amount of drugs entering the US had skyrocketed. The Government Accounting Office stated that cocaine imports had doubled in one year.
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In the summer of 1989, the Commissioner of US Customs resigned because he believed that the only real battles were being fought against minorities and the downtrodden, while those in authority were protecting the government's monopoly in the trade. "The War on Drugs is a war of words," he said.
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While the international narcotics trade thrived, Reagan declared the War on Drugs to be one of his best achievements. But in 1989, the Iran-Contra scandal revealed that the US government - via the CIA - had been trafficking in hard drugs for military weapons. During the investigation, the increasingly frail and senile Reagan feigned ignorance and most people believed him. Throughout Reagan's term, ex-CIA-director Bush had really been calling the shots.
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President Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 1989. On September 5, 1989, he outlined his strategy for eradicating drug use. He asked Congress for $7.9 billion, 70 percent for law enforcement, including $1.6 billion for prisOns. "This scourge will stop." His focus was on reducing demand, meaning arresting more drug users, rather than prevention, education and medical treatment. He increased the repressive measures against marijuana users.
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"Our nation has zero tolerance for casual drug use… You do drugs, you will be caught, and when you're caught, you will be punished. Some think there won't be room for them in jail. We'll make room."
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The story of Keith Jackson illustrates Bush's duplicity in the War on Drugs. On September 5, 1989, President Bush appeared on TV. "This is the first time since taking the oath of office that I've felt an issue was so important, so threatening, that it warranted talking directly with you, the American people. All of us agree that the gravest domestic threat facing our nation today is drugs. Drugs have strained our faith in our system of justice. Our courts, our prisons, our legal system, are stretched to breaking point. The social costs of drugs are mounting. In short, drugs are sapping our strength as a nation. Turn on the evening news or pick up the morning paper and you'll see what some Americans know just by stepping out their front door: Our most serious problem today is cocaine, and in particular, crack..." Reaching to his side, Bush produced a bag labelled EVIDENCE with chalky rocks in it. "This is crack cocaine seized a few days ago by Drug Enforcement agents in a park just across the street from the White House. It could easily have been heroin or PCP. It's as innocent-looking as candy, but it's turning our cities into battle zones and it's murdering our children. Let there be no mistake: this stuff is poison. Some used to call drugs harmless recreation; they're not. Drugs are a real and terribly dangerous threat to our neighbour-hoods, our friends and our families. . ."
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