👉 Pitch in on Patreon and fuel the future of free-thinking conversations. https://www.patreon.com/parallaxviews Also visit our returning sponsor Mike Swanson's Wall Street Window for the best financial and trading newsletter around: https://wallstreetwindow.com/ On this edition of Parallax Views, returning guest Bill Conroy, investigative journalist and author of The Great Pretense: A Tour Through the Boneyard of the CIA’s War for Drugs, joins us for a deep dive into the dark, complicated, and often obscured history of the War on Drugs. Conroy takes us through some of the most disturbing episodes surrounding U.S. drug-war policy and the national security state, including the infamous Ciudad Juárez “House of Death” scandal, the Mayan Jaguar operation, allegations surrounding the murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, and the reporting of journalist Gary Webb on the CIA, the Contras, and the crack cocaine epidemic. We discuss what these cases reveal about the murky relationships between intelligence agencies, law enforcement, informants, drug traffickers, and covert operations. But this conversation goes beyond individual scandals. Why has the War on Drugs proven so difficult, arguably impossible, to win? What happens when drug use is treated primarily as a criminal problem rather than a public-health issue? And what kind of institutional feedback loop emerges when agencies such as the DEA have bureaucratic and political incentives tied to the continuation of the drug war itself? Conroy also discusses the political ramifications of Donald Trump’s targeting of Mexico and the broader tendency to blame foreign countries and drug cartels for problems deeply connected to U.S. policy and demand. Along the way, we examine the graveyard of whistleblowers, informants, and journalists left behind by the drug war and the national-security apparatus surrounding it. Perhaps most importantly, we tackle the difficult line between conspiracy theory and conspiracy fact. When does skepticism toward official narratives become unfounded conspiracy thinking; and when does the historical record demonstrate that supposedly “conspiratorial” claims were actually true? Why has much of the mainstream media failed to seriously grapple with the complex, disturbing history of the War on Drugs? This is a wide-ranging conversation about drugs, intelligence agencies, law enforcement, journalism, whistleblowing, Mexico, Gary Webb, Kiki Camarena, the CIA, the DEA, and the institutional interests that can keep a failed war going long after its failures have become apparent. This is one of the episode's J.G. is proudest of to date!
