Movie: Freeway - Crack in the System

A profile of "Freeway" Rick Ross, one of the most successful crack cocaine dealers in South Central L.A. during the 1980s.

What makes his story interesting are these:

• Rick Ross was totally illiterate (he taught himself to read in jail at age 28)
  
• Rick Ross was selling $1M worth of crack cocaine per day at his peak
  
• He was busted by an informer, who also was his supplier
  
• This supplier turned state's witness, and received no jail time
  
• Rick's life sentence was based on California's three strikes rule
  
• But it was overturned on appeal because Rick's three convictions were all for the same arrest
  
• Rick's informant/supplier also worked for the Reagan Administration setting up the trading of drugs for arms in the Iran-Contra Scandal

There's a deep undercurrent of suspicion in the Black community that crack was a CIA plot to destroy the black community. This documentary makes it pretty clear it's not that simple -- but there's also a grain of truth there.