From the line you yourself posted:

"Webb's series led to three federal investigations, none of which found evidence of any conspiracy by the CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States."

Also, I haven't downvoted you and I'm quite confused by the votes on my original comment. Went straight into the negatives and now it's back up.

See also: U.F.O.'s, Kennedy Assassination, Illuminati, etc...

Seems like a bad way to determine the truth. But either way, even if the crack epidemic was simply a result of the material conditions in the communities it effected, the government is culpable, though perhaps in a somewhat more limited way

There has also been lots of coverage of Obama not being a natural born American, and thus an illegitimate president. Do you think that means "there must be some truth behind it?"

The kind of thinking you displayed in your comment leads to damaging nonsense like birther-ism. Don't go there.

You are the same kind of person who called us talking about NSA pre-Snowden "tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists" and then post-Snowden came out with all kinds of variations of "why are you surprised" and "we all already knew this whats the big deal", and "if you've nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" type of bullshit.

In the conspiracy theory arena, the main sticking point is that people far too often fail to understand the difference between inductive and deductive logic. In many cases we have very little evidence to go on, so we are forced to transition to inductive logic from deductive... but inevitably those decrying the lack of evidence the loudest tend to ignore the very real legitimacy of inductive logic and it's process when one is presented with a lack of hard evidence.

I agree that the tone borders on uncivil maybe crosses over with some vulgar language, but the only part that could be construed as ad-hominem is the phrase "You are the same kind of person" and, even then, the rest of the sentence goes on to accuse the commentor of making an argument by providing an analogy.

No name-calling occurred.

Threatening to ban someone for posting a comment that does, overall, make an important point, even when phrased awkwardly or not in the most civil way possible, is likely to have a chilling effect and "destroy intellectual curiosity", to borrow from the guidelines.

The personal aspect would be bad, except it doesn't exist.

The tropiness of the phrase I'll take your word for, as I don't frequent any other online discussion sites. It certainly doesn't add to the discussion.

Is a phrase that is extraneous, currently popular/cliche, and merely possibly offensive because it's typically used ad-hominem elsewhere, really cause for threatening to ban a user?

I think you're over-reacting.

On the other hand, no reports on CIA programs selling crack cocaine to the inner city have ever been described or verified by any major media outlet, as far as I am aware[1]. Nor have I seen any convincing evidence of such a program.

But I'm open to any evidence you can show me, if you have any.

Also, as someone else pointed out, MI6 wasn't founded until a half century after the Opium Wars.

1. Despite many major media outlets—the same ones who outed programs like Stellar Wind—investigating the claims that the CIA smuggled drugs into black communities, they all found that there was no evidence of such a program.

The major news outlets for the most part did not dispute his facts, just used former cia reporters to discredit his conclusions. Which led to Gary Webb "committing suicide" by shooting himself twice in the head with a revolver

Your first link discusses the credible claim that Contra groups were involved with smuggling drugs into the US. All that media coverage of this accusation investigated the claim that the CIA was involved and found no evidence of this.

Your second link makes the credible claim that Nixon began the war on drug to discredit hippy and black political opponents (very likely). But nothing to do with the CIA smuggling drugs into the US.