For whoever wants to know why the idea that the government flooded black communities with drugs, it comes from an investigated series by a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in the late 1990s. The reporter was Gary Webb, and he claimed that the Nicaraguan Contras (anti-Communists) trafficked drugs in California with the knowledge and approval of the CIA. President Reagan supported the Contradoras/Contras because they were fighting the Sandinistas, who were the Communists. The Democrats didn't think the Communists were so bad so they cut off government funding by passing something called the Boland Amendment. So Reagan went around the Boland Amendment by raising private money to support the Contras.

Two Nicaraguans who were important in the Contras, Oscar Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses, who sold cocaine to Freeway Ricky Ross, who then sold them to the Crips. The CIA did work with Blandon and Meneses, but did not support their drug work. In fact Blandon was arrested by the FBI for drug trafficking, convicted, and then worked with the DEA to take down Ricky Ross! So Blandon received NO protection by the CIA. Sometimes the CIA has to work with bad people to get the bigger fish, like helping to take down a hostile government. That's part of their job.

Ricky Ross started selling cocaine for a teacher after high school, then made so much money he went on his own. The teacher had a middle man, but Ross dealt with the original suppliers, Blandon and Meneses, who sold a cheaper form of coke. They all made a lot of money. The key facts are that they operated out of Los Angeles via Nicaragua. The Nicaraguans did not deal in with other black communities. Ross was already a drug trafficker. The CIA did not protect the Nicaraguans. The government did not bring drugs to black communities. Ultimately, people in black communities who used crack did it of their own free will. No one put guns to their heads and made them smoke crack. They made their own choices.

Ross says that because the CIA looked the other way while Blandon sold cocaine that they are responsible. But working with a drug trafficker does not mean that the CIA approved of what he was doing. Also, it was not Blandon who sold crack and started the crack epidemic, but Ross. Ricky Ross started the crack epidemic because the people he was dealing to preferred it over PCP, which was the epidemic then.

Here is Ricky Ross interviewed by Reason magazine. It's interesting because it delves into the economics of Ross's criminal enterprise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9w3ql7hIG8

Gary Webb was demoted by the San Jose Mercury News for being sloppy and jumping to conclusions after other newspapers challenged him. He quit then wrote a book called "Deadly Alliance." He went to work as a state investigator until he was laid off, then for an alternative newspaper. Unable to meet his mortgage, he lost his house, became depressed and killed himself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb

Several investigations concluded that Webb's claims were exaggerated. Crack had already started showing up in Los Angeles, Miami, Houston and other places in 1981 when dealers created it to increase profits. Ross sold cocaine and the dealers he sold it to started converting it to rock to increase their own profits. Ross sold his low-priced coke all over the country. Blandon didn't sell it all over the country, Ross did. The claim that the government flooded black communities with drugs is lie (especially since the accusation is that the CIA spread cocaine -- not any other government agency and not other drugs -- and that one charge is false. No one in the CIA sold drugs, but a couple people working with the CIA did. So the claim is guilt by association, which is a logical fallacy.

Another guy who believes the government itself sold the drugs is conspiracy nut Alex Jones, who also believes that Bill Clinton used to have cocaine flown in at the Mena, Arkansas air port when he was governor.