Just Saying "No" . . . unless . . . Image The "Just Say 'No'" campaign All illegal drugs regarded as similarly deplorable A "law and order" crackdown on illegal drug runners, sellers, and users, as mediated by the legal system Realities Just after the 1984 elections, reports reach journalists and confirmed by U.S. officials that the Contras are running cocaine into the U.S. This is being done with assistance from Panama, Costa Rica, and from anti-Castro Cubans, active in such measures since the Bay of Pigs. 1985 cover story that the charges are simply political, but continued confirmation by Federal officers in the Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs Service, FBI. San Francisco Examiner 1986 interviews Contra fundraiser who admits to bringing drugs into the U.S. and distributing them in major U.S. cities, story confirmed by Associated Press, an FBI probe, and a three-page statement from the Reagan administration. 1986 Kerry Committee in the U.S. Senate documents payments to drug dealers for assistance to the Contras Very little consistent media coverage Later investigative reports in the San Jose Mercury News alleged CIA involvement in the crack-cocaine epidemic, not widely reprinted or read. Later CIA investigation exhonerates itself of the charges, which is widely caried and, after which, coverage disappears