---
category: City
summary: San Jose, California was the home of the San Jose Mercury News, which published
  the Dark Alliance series, and a secondary market for Contra-connected cocaine distribution.
tags:
- geography
- u.s.-city
- contra-war
---

San Jose, [California](/places/california/) was the home of the [San Jose Mercury News](/organizations/san-jose-mercury-news/), which published the [Dark Alliance](/events/dark-alliance/) series, and a secondary market for Contra-connected [cocaine](/concepts/cocaine/) distribution. The city appeared in the story both as a base for [Gary Webb](/people/gary-webb/)'s newspaper and as one of the communities affected by the Contra-drug pipeline.[^1]

### Cocaine Distribution

[Danilo Blandón](/people/danilo-blandon/)'s Contra-connected cocaine network distributed drugs in San Jose in addition to [Los Angeles](/places/los-angeles/) and [San Francisco](/places/san-francisco/). Gary Webb wrote that the fact a government-connected drug ring was dumping tons of cocaine into black neighborhoods in L.A., "and to a lesser extent in San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, Portland, Houston, Oklahoma City, Alabama and [New Orleans](/places/new-orleans/)," explained why crack developed such deep roots in the black community. "It's where the seed was planted."[^2]

### Dark Alliance Publication

The San Jose Mercury News, based in San Jose, published the Dark Alliance series on August 18, 1996. The paper's Web site became a sensation, recording over one million hits in a single day. After the media counterattack, Mercury News executive editor [Jerry Ceppos](/people/jerry-ceppos/) published his apology column and ordered the Web site's Dark Alliance materials destroyed. Thousands of reprints were gathered up and burned, and a CD-ROM version was destroyed.[^3]

[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 27.
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 27.
[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 27.