  urlLink Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion This story, originally published by the San Jose Mercury News in 1996, exposed the activities of the CIA, in flooding California with crack cocaine throughout the early 80s - building the crack epidemic pretty much from a standing start, in fact, and channeling the profits into the hands of anti-democratic forces in Nicaragua (perversely named the Nicaraguan Democratic Forces, but better known as the Contras).
The author of the series of articles, urlLink Gary Webb , should have picked up a Pulitzer prize, which would have gone very nicely with the one he had already been awarded in 1990. Instead he was urlLink hounded out of journalism altogether - Webb's allegations were never refuted, but the Mercury retracted their support for the story anyway. You might want to have a look at urlLink this talk he gave in Eugene, Oregon in 1999, which includes some updating, and an account of what happened between Webb and his employer as the extent of the story became apparent... [Google urlLink Gary Webb ] (thanks to urlLink wood s lot for the heads up) 
