> It is a bit slimy on the author's part to conflate the racism of the anti-cocaine movement with Coke's removal of cocaine without some substantiation.
Not really. It's a plausible claim and roughly the best that can be done without actual documents or a time traveling mind reader.
The gap between plausible claim, and substantiated claim used to be the realm journalism. Especially if you are going to start tagging people as racist, you should be able back it up. Plausible claims are ok for rumors about the next iPhone, but not cool for attacking reputations.
Not really. It's a plausible claim and roughly the best that can be done without actual documents or a time traveling mind reader.