GUEST POST: Dan Baum Should Have Known Better

Emily Dufton on Reddit, John Ehrlichman, and Nixon’s real war on drugs

Dear Readers,

Today we begin a series of guest posts by Emily Dufton, who is also my latest guest on the podcast. There (starting at the 34:45 mark), we discuss the supposed John Ehrlichman quote that was published by journalist Dan Baum in 2016—and has since been widely circulated—claiming that the “war on drugs” was never really about drugs. The quote suggests that the drug war was always just a red herring to disguise the true intentions of the Nixon Administration: to crack down on hippies and Black people. As we discuss in our conversation, few things have quite the whiff of bullshit as that quote, and in this series of posts, Emily takes on that very subject. Enjoy!

-Isaac