America Suffers One Man’s Patriotism

One of the worst afflictions suffered by the urban areas of the United States today is the little off-white rock, known as crack, which mars the lives of millions. The crack craze can be traced back to one man who would risk the law, his reputation, and even the lives of him and his family for patriotism. Oscar Danilo Blandon Reyes’s cocaine enterprise in California embedded a viral craze with destructive force in our society. Blandon was the innovator who used his advanced marketing knowledge and skills to bring large amounts of high-grade cocaine at low prices, into the black and inner city poor neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles. In putting his lucrative product in the hands of crack gangs and ultimately the hands of desperate, easily addicted, poverty stricken people who would do anything to take the edge off of life, Blandon’s marketing strategies had massive effects on the drug rings involved, as well as those addicted and the communities the drugs infiltrated.

Through its extensive history among the Americas, as well as around the world, Paul Gootenberg of Stony Brook State University of New York, from his writings found in The Americas journal, explains that, “Illicit cocaine for overseas use was born in Peru in 1947-50 with the suppression of a declining legal cocaine sector, and then pushed on to Bolivia, where the revolution progressively fostered cocaine’s development until 1964” (Gootenberg 172). Through the 1950s and 60s, the cocaine trade branched out from Bolivia to countries like Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. Gangsters and drug ringleaders like the Huasaff-Harb clan, Mendez Marfa, and Blanca Ibanez created the northern trade routes reaching to Miami and even New York City (Gootenberg). Eventually these countries, well established in the cocaine trade industry, sought assistance with their major narcotics problem. The UN and INTERPOL, as well as the United States, granted aid. This support was a “prime American objective,” since “by mid-1950, U.S. authorities officially labeled Bolivia the principle source of cocaine entering the United States.” (Gootenberg 163, 167)

U.S. coups in Bolivia and Chile, which shut down operations producing hundreds of kilos of cocaine a month, forced the drug trade north into Columbia. “Columbian smugglers like Pablo Escobar and Carlos Lehder became forces in this wholesale trade, swiftly branching into the streets of Queens, Miami, and Los Angeles, pushing to dizzying heights the anonymous networks built by hundreds of pre-Columbian narcos since the 1950s” (Gootenberg 175). The rise of Columbian cartels would continue to increase the amount of cocaine being brought into the United States up through the 1970s. Yet, cocaine in the US would remain largely a thrill drug enjoyed by the urban upper class, as well as the rock n’ roll scene that encroached our culture as we approached the 1980s.

It would not be until the Sandinista regime overthrew Anastasio Somoza, the dictator of Nicaragua, in 1979 that the roots to drive cocaine into the ghettos of Los Angeles began to surface. As Danilo Blandon came to meet another exile, named Juan Norwin Meneses Cantarero, in LA, he was eventually lead to encounter Col. Enrique Bermudez, the leader of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) in Honduras. With his small band of exiles now teamed up along side Bermudez’s counterinsurgency operation, Blandon got the incentive he needed to put all his efforts towards helping rebuild and strengthen Somoza’s army.

Crack cocaine had been on the rise leading up to 1980. There is no doubt that crack cocaine already existed in the poor communities of South Central Los Angeles prior to Blandon’s illicit FDN fundraising; in the form of cocaine sales. The local crack gangs, such as the Bloods and Crips, previously did not have the connections to the amount of cocaine that Blandon was able to supply.

Through Meneses’s reputation in Nicaragua and connections in the drug industry, Blandon’s marketing abilities would bring about changes we continue to struggle with today. He put a seemingly endless supply of cheap, high-grade cocaine into the hands of crack dealers to spread through the poor neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles. In doing so, Blandon is the one who initially linked the big-time cocaine rings, stemming from the Columbian cartels, to the small-time crack gangs, such as the Bloods and the Crips. He instigated the crack craze that still plagues countless cities and neighborhoods. (“’Crack’ Plagues”)

The affluent urban society was the main customer of the cocaine business at the time. Cocaine was expensive and, with only wealthy clientele, business was especially limited. When Blandon entered the business, he saw all of this and took it into account. With the key to access the vast opportunity of the poor communities of the city and surrounding area already intact, Blandon realized that the virtually untapped crack market was his ticket to success.

When Blandon was introduced to Ricky Donnell Ross, a local crack dealer of Los Angeles, the barrier was broken. Ross had connections on the streets and with local gangs that were priceless to Blandon’s sales. As their business grew rapidly, cocaine began to bridge the social gap and came to symbolize, “more than any other illicit drug the twin extremes of decadent indulgence and dire poverty that characterize the excesses of American capitalism,” as defined by Bernardo Alexander Attias, a doctor of communications who focuses much of his studies on mass-mediated events and the drug war (542).

“Former Los Angeles police narcotics detective Stephen W. Polak said he was working the streets of South-Central in the mid-1980s when he and his partners began seeing more cocaine than ever before,” as Gary Webb reported in the third part of his news series, “Dark Alliance” (“War On Drugs”). With Blandon supplying the cocaine to Ross and the gangs of South Central, these locals were dealing more crack and cocaine than they had ever been used too. “’A lot of detectives, a lot of cops, were saying, hey, these blacks, no longer are we just seeing gram dealers. These guys are doing ounces; they were doing keys,’ Polak recalled. But he said the reports were pooh-poohed by higher-ups who couldn't believe black neighborhoods could afford the amount of cocaine the street cops claimed to be seeing.” (“War On Drugs”).

With so much crack and cocaine flowing through the neighborhoods of South Central LA, it began to engrave itself in the largely African American communities. “Cocaine was suddenly seen as threatening when it became widely and inexpensively available to the nation’s black and inner city poor; its widespread use by the urban upper class was never viewed as an epidemic” (Attias 544). Cocaine, and its use as crack, was much more disastrous in its addiction among poor and black neighborhoods. Crack is highly addictive, and affordable to the lower class more so than cocaine itself. It is more destructive to those already in hardship because it is very appealing, and many rely on its false sense of security to take the edge off the life they cannot escape. Those with nothing to loose will give all they have just to feed that need. They then find themselves still trapped in the never-ending spiral of poverty, which plagues many African American communities today. One crack cocaine user, documented in Eugene Richards’ book, Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue, says “’Six years ago, soon as I got out of the service, they introduced me to it. So I got rid of everything and moved back inside here [the ghetto]…. and that’s where it all started from. No rent, make money, …take it around the corner, give it to the man, get my thing, and I’m only happy for a little while” (Richards 8).

The industry sucks people in, takes control of their lives, and holds them down, only to keep them there and make everything worse in the end. The poor, and those who seek opportunity, when little pulls through for them, get fooled by its fallacies and stay ensnared in their cycles of poverty.

With its roots so heavily traced in their recent history, the crack cocaine industry continues to curse the black communities of L.A., as well as those around the country. Even from the start, Blandon himself admits that it was blacks that controlled the crack business in Los Angeles for the decade he headed trafficking in that area (Webb WAR). A study, conducted by Roland G. Fryer of the Harvard University Society of Fellows, concluded that, before the 1980s, the crack indices, in all races, were around 0 or 0.5. Then, through the 1980s and early 90s, the crack indices among blacks jumped all the way to and above 3, as it still remained around 0.5 for whites (52). Today, the vast majority of people convicted of cocaine trafficking in the California area are African American (“War on Drugs”).

As Blandon’s operation prompted the rapid growth of various crack gangs, not only were communities inundated with addiction, but violence rampaged wherever the drug business flourished. “The local dealers' profits from the crack sales also made it easier for vicious street gangs such as the Bloods and the Crips to buy Uzis and other assault weapons. That, in turn, made it easier for the gangs to try to slaughter each other in turf wars, taking the lives of children and scores of other innocents in drive-by shootings” (“This Time”).

Not only did violence between gangs, and violence caused by the business itself, increase, cocaine and crack induced violence rose dramatically. Even today, “The rate of cocaine-associated physical, psychological, or family-related problems has doubled nationwide since 1985” and “Crack-related murders, violence, crime, suicides, and motor-vehicle fatalities continue to disrupt every major city in America” (Nicholas 157). In the same Harvard study by Fryer mentioned earlier, it was found that, in result of the crack craze, the amount of cocaine busts, as well as cocaine arrests, in a survey of cities, profoundly increased all throughout the 1980s. This number of arrests generally remained at its high rate up until the present. (Fryer 50) Today, the crack and cocaine craze continues to be a thriving problem in our society: “The United States accounts for 5 percent of the world’s population and consumes 50 percent of the world’s cocaine” (Nicholas 157).

However, Danilo Blandon was just one of many people involved in the LA cocaine ring of the 1980s. The fault of the crack craze, that was the effect of their business, will often times be placed on other people in the operation, or even the operation as a whole.

Rick Ross worked alongside Blandon, almost the whole decade through, making millions of dollars trafficking and distributing thousands of kilos of cocaine in LA. Arguments that Rick “Freeway” Ross was the kingpin who initiated the crack cocaine epidemic are strong, as he was also one of the top crack dealers of the time. “He's responsible for a major cancer that still hasn't stopped spreading," said Polak about Ross, as reported by Webb in his news series (“Odd Trio”). Yet, he was merely a crack dealer. Sure, Ross had street smarts and some connections, but Blandon was the one who chose to bring his cocaine to the crack dealers. Ross just happened to be the lucky crack dealer that got tied up with him.

It could also be argued that Ross and Blandon needed each other; that they, together, were the trigger to the epidemic. Still, even Ross, himself, admits that the secret to his success and the spread of crack and cocaine was Danilo Blandon. (“Odd Trio”)

Another argument may be that Meneses was the trigger. He worked with and supplied Blandon. He is the one who imported mass amounts of cocaine into the United States. This is also wrong. All Meneses did was import to regions of the country. He did not care who the clientele was. Blandon was the one who decided to target the ghettos where it did the most damage and had the most appeal.

It could also be said that major drug trafficking operations can only run if every checkpoint is fully operational and cooperative; that the entire FDN financial backing, including Meneses, Blandon, Ross, and low level dealers, can be held responsible for the crack craze. Many people may try to pin it on others working within the operation.

All others involved in the operation were just part of an already existing system. Danilo Blandon decided to thrust their operation in another direction. Blandon triggered the crack epidemic by concentrating his sales, not on high-class whites or the rock n’ roll scene, but on the crack gangs and dealers of poor black neighborhoods of LA.

With limited business among the affluent society, sales had to be generated somewhere else for the cocaine industry to grow. Danilo Blandon had connections and the supply of the Columbian cartels, as well as strong motive, that drove him to find the business needed. He headed for the ghettos and black neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles where crack, cocaine’s derivative, had just begun to infect the community. “The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America - and provided the cash and connections needed for L.A.'s gangs to buy automatic weapons” (“’Crack’ Plagues”). All evidence within society, subsequent to the 1980s, supports the fact that Oscar Danilo Blandon Reyes was the innovator who brought large amounts of high-grade cocaine at low prices into the black and inner city poor neighborhoods of LA. Ever since then, crack has been deeply rooted in those communities and remains a disease among countless cities. The addiction suffered by millions and the harsh affects of its use and business on the surrounding population, is a crisis; which may never end.

Works Cited

Attias, Bernardo Alexander. “Cocaine/Crack.” St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Vol. 1: A-D. Ed. Tom Pendergast, Sara. St. James Press. 542-544.

Gootenberg, Paul. The 'Pre-Colombian' Era of Drug Trafficking in the Americas: Cocaine, 1945-1965 . 
The Americas - Volume 64, Number 2, October 2007, pp. 133-176.

Nicholas, Stephen W. “Afterword.” Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue. Published by: Arti Grafiche Motta SPA, Milan, Italy. 1994. Pg 157-159.

Richards, Eugene. Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue. Published by: Arti Grafiche Motta SPA, Milan, Italy. 1994.

Fryer, Roland G. “Measuring Crack Cocaine and Its Impact.”  Harvard University. 2006. http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/fhlm_crack_cocaine.pdf

“This Time The Victims Were American Another CIA Disgrace: Helping The Crack Flow.” Editorial. San Jose Mercury News. 21 August 1996. Pg 6B.

Webb, Gary. “'Crack' Plague's Roots Are In Nicaragua War Columbia-Bay Area Drug Pipeline Helped Finance CIA-Backed Contras '80s Effort To Assist Guerrillas Left Legacy Of Drugs, Gangs In Black L.A.” San Jose Mercury News. 18 August 1996. Pg A1.

Webb, Gary. “Odd Trio Created Mass Market For 'Crack' L.A. Dealer Might Get Life.” San Jose Mercury News.  19 August 1996. Pg A1.

Webb, Gary. “War On Drugs' Unequal Impact On U.S. Blacks Contra Case Illustrates The Discrepancy: Nicaraguan Goes Free.” San Jose Mercury News.  20 August 1996. Pg A1.