On Sept. 5, 1989, President George H.W. Bush appeared on live television to discuss what he called the nation's "gravest domestic threat." Sitting at his desk in the oval office, Bush held up a bag of crack cocaine that had been seized in a park across from the White House, saying: "It's as innocent looking as candy, but it's turning our cities into battle zones." Looking back now, author and journalist Donovan X. Ramsey describes Bush's press conference as a form of propaganda designed to create a panic about the crack epidemic and to "demonize drug dealers and also addicts."...
