The New York Times Sunday Book Review has a positive review of "Drug Use for Grown-Ups," a book by a professor of psychology at Columbia University, Carl Hart. According to the review, Hart's book states, "I am now entering my fifth year as a regular heroin user." From the review:
I met Hart once, in 2016, when I interviewed him for an article I was writing about Adderall. He told me that for a responsible adult, it could make more sense to take a small dose of Adderall than to use caffeine — because Adderall has "less calories." At the time, I was struck by his candor. Now I understand that this is his driving purpose: to demystify drugs, to advocate for the right to "the pursuit of pleasure" enshrined in the Declaration of Independence itself.
I found this paragraph puzzling on two fronts. First, caffeine in the form of, say, black coffee has almost zero calories—an insignificant amount. Second, the quotation marks make it look as if "the pursuit of pleasure" is a quote from the Declaration of Independence. That document uses the words "the pursuit of Happiness."
When Senator Tom Cotton wrote a Times op-ed that said "In fact, the federal government has a constitutional duty to the states to 'protect each of them from domestic violence,'" the Times forced out the editorial page editor and ran an editor's note that said in part, "The essay also includes a reference to a "constitutional duty" that was intended as a paraphrase; it should not have been rendered as a quotation."
If the Times doesn't force out the editor responsible for this book review and append an editor's note about misquoting the Declaration of Independence, people might start to suspect there is one standard for opinion pieces from Republican senators, and a second, different standard for laudatory book reviews about heroin-using Columbia professors.