Pablo Escobar’s character in Narcos said it best:
“Lies are necessary, when the truth is too difficult to believe.”
And maybe, for the last century, connecting these dots was too difficult to believe.
Our historical leadership trafficked dope. The war on drugs was a PR stunt gone wrong.
The U.S. introduced crack to the ghettos — flooded the market with cocaine they bought from narcos in order to provide arms for Iran.
You can’t make this shit up.
And now the Information Age has allowed us to connect all the dots, the subtle variables that are easily tracked over time, plain as day:
The U.S. Government has always been Top Boy.
I: “Never let no one know how much dough you hold…”
People love to forget the Roosevelt Dynasty started similar to Frank Lucas cornering Harlem.
China was against exporting opium — it’s an era literally called the Opium Wars. Western powers were like nope, we want your dope and then forced their hand.
FDR’s maternal grandfather, Delano made a fortune from the illegal opium trade in China. He was a senior partner at Russell & Company, a leading American firm smuggling opium through the Philippines in the early 1800s.
The patriarch of the Roosevelt family didn’t cut out the middle man like Frank — he invented the game.
II: “Never let ’em know your next move.”
People love to say Joe Kennedy Sr. was a bootlegger — consorted with early mafia leaders, ran rackets to stack his wealth.
I’m saying it’s actually worse.
Because he didn’t approach Prohibition like Al Capone. He didn’t fight the system. He moved inside it. He used government connections and backdoor deals to secure actual permits to import liquor during Prohibition.
While men were getting gunned down in the streets or rotting in federal prison over a bottle, Kennedy was laying the foundation for a political dynasty — legally.
The rich and powerful bend the rules around “illicit substances” to their profit and convenience.
III: “Never trust nobody.”
Few people want to believe MK Ultra existed — that the CIA used untested psychedelics on servicemen and civilians in an attempt to wield mind control during the Cold War.
But it did. And it wasn’t subtle.
They dosed prisoners, mental patients, even their own agents.
It wasn’t about understanding the mind — it was about controlling it. And if that meant using LSD like a chemical crowbar to pry someone open, so be it.
But when they realized those drugs unlocked too much freedom — opened too many doors they couldn’t close — they flipped the script.
They demonized the whole deal and told everyone the hippies sucked.
IV: “Never get high on your own supply.”
Tell that to our boys who were fighting in the holy grail of heroin.
During the Vietnam War, the CIA backed traffickers in Southeast Asia, looking the other way — or worse, flying the product themselves through Air America. By 1971, tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers were addicted, and the same government that funded the drug’s journey watched its own troops overdose in real time.
And they were like: how did this happen?
V: “Never sell no crack where you rest at.”
It’s not that crack didn’t exist before Iran-Contra — it’s that cocaine was a luxury drug, and cooking it down was too expensive for the hood.
That changed when the CIA brokered a deal to fight the Sandinistas and fund arms for Iran with one strategic, morally bankrupt move.
Suddenly the market was flooded with cheap, high-quality cocaine — perfect for freebase.
And just like that, the U.S. government sold the first cocaine to the ghetto that got cooked into crack rocks at scale.
They put the dope boys on the corner en masse.
VI: “That goddamn credit? Dead it.”
Nancy Reagan declared: “Just say no.”
To the rampant social epidemic that my husband caused. Say no to criminals we fund. Say yes to having the moral standing of a house of cards.
Reagan avoided taking credit for his mess by making a bigger one. The War on Drugs — which, at this point in the story, we can all agree is laughable.
It didn’t fight drugs. It used drugs as cover to bulldoze Black neighborhoods, jail the poor, and call it policy.
It was simply a deviously clever way to open the door to the private prison plague we’ve allowed.
VII: “Keep your family and business completely separated.”
The Bushes didn’t get the memo.
George H.W. ran the CIA, helped oversee covert ops that trafficked cocaine, and later sat in the White House talking about “law and order.”
We’ve never seen such hypocrisy.
Then his likable but dimwitted son took the reins, in the pocket of Big Pharma, while Oxy flooded the country and Medicare programs lined the industry’s pockets.
This wasn’t average politics — it was Machiavellian chess moves made on consumer goods.
And let’s all remember: Afghanistan wasn’t the world’s top opium exporter until after the U.S. invaded.
VIII: “Never keep no weight on you.”
And if you’re truly diabolical — reign pill-shaped chaos on an entire population for profit without ever holding the bag.
Where do we think pharmaceutical companies get their opium for painkillers? Are we all assuming there is a clear break between the farms that sell to Purdue Pharma and the ones who sell to La Cartel de Sinola?
The supply chains are separate on paper — but in practice, the system feeds both ends.
The Sackler’s didn’t need to buy from El Chapo — they pushed poison with FDA approval while the cartels handled the overflow.
And they crippled an entire culture, willfully, with malice-intent — legally.
IX: “If you ain’t gettin’ bagged, stay the fuck from police.”
Unless you’re the one paying them.
When the Sacklers got hit, the CIA obstructed investigations, the DEA looked the other way. Purdue got wrist slaps and immunity deals — for literally causing unfathomable devastation.
If you move bricks in a hoodie, they kick down your door.
If you move pills in a suit, they give you a bonus.
The lesson?
Beware of the dope boys in boardrooms.
X: “A strong word called consignment — if you ain’t got the clientele, say hell no.”
But the US has always had the demand.
We are the biggest drug consuming nation in the world — we love to do drugs recreationally and take a pill for every ailment.
I am not even harping at our ridiculous desire to escape and innate ability to dodge anything scary.
I get that.
I just want everyone to know where that freedom comes from…
Where they can find the connect.