Investigative journalist Gary Webb was at the center of an explosive exposé back in the 1990s. In his famed “Dark Alliance” series, published in 1996, Webb uncovered evidence that a drug ring in the San Francisco Bay Area was routinely selling crack to LA street gangs, and funneling the money back to the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s, all with the knowledge and perhaps help of the CIA. Though the claims were controversial at the time, some of them were later vindicated. Webb eventually turned his series into a book in 1998, which won several awards, but sadly, he would be found dead in 2004, the victim of an apparent suicide. The fact that he had died from two gunshots to the head gave some people pause, though, and there are still some who believe that Gary Webb was murdered for the information he revealed to the public. Webb’s story was made into a film called Kill the Messenger in 2014, starring Jeremy Renner. Join Tom and Jenny back to the 80s and 90s to examine the origins of the crack epidemic and the possible involvement of the CIA on this conspiratorial episode.

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