Probably one of the first questions ever asked, but for obvious reasons, there is no way to search the archives for the answer. Where did the phrase “the straight dope” come from anyway?
sheesh.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=23776
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=5096
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=29430
i stopped at three, as i figured you’d get the point. there is always a way.
I don’t recall it ever being in a column, but it has been asked on the board:
Origin of the phrase “straight dope”
(I found the threads by looking up the origin of “dope” and searching using that info, because I knew it’d been posted in at least one of the threads, but if you’d had that, you wouldn’t have needed to ask 
)
Well–it just wouldn’t sound the same if they called it ‘The Gay Dope’.
and ‘The Dope’ is just too short and uninteresting. Gotta have subtance. gotta have character and soul!
“The Straight Dope”.
Such beauty! Such masterful articulation! Enough to make the boldest and bravest of men begin weeping!
Wait… wasn’t that one of Esprix’s threads?
–Tim
Hardly - it’s sunk well below page one. Someone mentioned perhaps it had run its course… and then it did. 
Esprix