Smoke and mirrors
the war on drugs and the politics of failure
by Dan Baum · first published 1996
100% neutral
For sheer government absurdity, the War on Drugs is hard to beat. After three decades of increasingly punitive policies, illicit drugs are more easily available, drug potencies are greater, drug killings are more common, and drug barons are richer than ever. The War on Drugs costs Washington more than the Commerce, Interior, and State departments combined - and it's the one budget item whose growth is never questioned. A strangled court system, exploding prisons, and wasted lives push the cost beyond measure. What began as a flourish of campaign rhetoric in 1968 has grown into a monster. And
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…twenty years instead of publishing it in his book on the subject. Huffington Post, however, asked him about that: Baum explained to The Huffington Post why he didn’t include the quote in his 1996 book, Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure. “There are no authorial interviews in [Smoke and Mirrors] at all; it’s written to put the reader in the room as events transpire,” Baum said in an email.…
on “Nixon advisor: We created the war on drugs to “criminalize” black people and” ↗…reason to believe Ehrlichman was being dishonest and viewed them as "atonement" from a man long after his tumultuous run in the White House ended. Baum interviewed Ehrlichman and others for his 1996 book "Smoke and Mirrors," but said he left out the Ehrlichman comment from the book because it did not fit the narrative style focused on putting the readers in the middle of the backroom discussions themselves, without input…
The Ehrlichman quote was first published by Dan Baum in his 1997 book, Smoke and Mirrors. This book came out before Ehrlichman died, and it included other interviews with Nixon staffers that supported the Ehrlichman quote. The book was reviewed by the New York Times.
on “A Psychedelic Renaissance” ↗…CNN. >Ehrlichman's comments did not surface until now after Baum remembered them while going back through old notes for the Harper's story. >Baum interviewed Ehrlichman and others for his 1996 book "Smoke and Mirrors," but said he left out the Ehrlichman comment from the book because it did not fit the narrative style focused on putting the readers in the middle of the backroom discussions themselves, without input…
on “Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy” ↗…"movements" in which taking psychedelics was something the members of the movement were known to do" I think that is true, but I think you have misidentified the actual rational behind the bans. In Dan Baum's Smoke and Mirrors, Dan Baum has John Ehrlichman, Nixon's domestic policy advisor, admitting that heroin and weed were targeted because their use was [perceived to be] popular among black people and hippies, both groups…
on “LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy” ↗…homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." Interviewed in 1992 by journalist Dan Baum, author of Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, full quote in "Truth, Lies, and Audiotape" by Dan Baum (2012).
on “Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue” ↗