Emily Dufton on the Maddening History of Our Broken System for Treating Opioid Addiction

Blue City Blues · Sep 1, 2026 · 1h 2m

Elected on a law-and-order platform, Richard Nixon launched the War on Drugs with a June 1971 press conference in which he declared drug abuse on the streets of American cities to be “public enemy number one.” Or so the conventional narrative goes. But drug historian Emily Dufton says that the true story is much more complicated, and interesting.

In fact, Dufton writes in her fascinating new book, Addiction Inc.: Medication-Assisted Treatment and America’s Forgotten War on Drugs, between 1971 and 1973 the Nixon administration presided over a massive expansion of publicly funded methadone…