From Ford to Obama, a history of illegal drugs in the White House
By Josh Christenson
July 5, 2023 7:08pm
Sunday’s discovery of cocaine in the West Wing recalls other presidential administrations reckoning with illicit drug use by either the commander in chief or his staff — and even, on at least one occasion, on the Executive Mansion’s grounds.
Tevi Troy, director of the Presidential Leadership Center at the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center, told The Post Wednesday that a look back through the tenures of recent chief executives shows how “attitudes toward drugs have changed significantly over the last 75 years.”
“In the 1950s, for example, Dwight Eisenhower was so anti-marijuana that he would not allow the White House projectionist to show Robert Mitchum movies because of Mitchum’s conviction on marijuana possession,” Troy said.
“After the Sixties happened, drug culture began to leak into many areas where it had previously been verboten, including the White House.”
Gerald Ford became the first modern commander in chief to confront the dope revolution after his 23-year-old son Jack admitted in an October 1975 interview that he had smoked pot.
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https://nypost.com/2023/07/05/from-ford-to-obama-a-history-of-drugs-and-the-white-house/
