Top 5 (alleged) Drugs in Politics (allegedly)

Everyone loves a loveable stoner – but does that universal law apply to the oft-hated politican? Does a stoned politician or government suddenly become loveable? In light of the recent weed-smoking revelations from Malcolm Turnbull and Julia “Gilchrist” Gillard, we put the tab on the tongue of history to bring you our top five (sort of) politicos who may have also at some point allegedly have been connected to narcotics. Allegedly. Please don’t sue.  

 
 
Okay, it’s a politically tense time in the US so let’s not say anything controversial. We’ll just lay out the facts and then you’re on your own: Cindy McCain got addicted to opioid painkillers in 1989, and at full stride was popping 20 pills a day. To feed her (allegedly insatiable) addiction, Cindy resorted to obtaining illegal prescriptions from an American Voluntary Medical Team (AVMT) physician. (The AVMT was a foundation she had previously founded.)
 
Cindy’s family staged an intervention and she kicked the habit in 1992. An AVMT employee who later discovered about the drug use was sacked faster than a bundle of freshly washed spuds. A legal dispute between McCain and the man ensued. A few concluding facts: John McCain was absent for much of Cindy’s addiction and admitted he was “not aware” of his wife’s problems at the time. Michelle Obama has no history of drug abuse. We’re just saying, is all.
 
TOTALLY LEGITIMATE SOURCE REFERENCES
 
 
Major exports from Colombia: oil, coffee, pop-up books, pure uncut cocaine. Colombia is responsible for 70% of cocaine production in the world and is the world’s numero uno cultivator of the stuff. (Almost) incidentally, Colombia is also one of the world’s most corrupt countries and drug money has allegedly seeped right up into the highest government offices, with political allies to the bespectacled President himself being linked to organised crime elements.
 
Further, law enforcement is lax and subsequently drug cartels are free to deal as much coke as they care (they care a great deal).
 
If Colombia were a Magna Doodle then I would suggest wiping that slider briskly left and right a few times.
 
TOTALLY LEGITIMATE SOURCE REFERENCES

Afghanistan is the world’s biggest source of opium. The most interesting part of it all that since the US liberation (sarcastic quotation marks implied), poppy cultivation has actually swelled out to near record levels – growing by 17% last year alone. The export value of the stuff has reached $4 billion, and it’s certainly more profitable for a little farmer to break his little back harvesting poppy ($6,957/ha) than – say – wheat ($400/ha) over there. It’s a key source of funding that’s keeping the Taliban breathing.
 
Cultivation and trafficking of the stuff was made illegal in 2002 by the Karzai government, but general corruption within the system means that it’s not going anywhere soon. The biggest problem to combating opium in Afghanistan is the lack of cooperation between Kabul and Washington. Karzai has refused to spray herbicides aerially – the most effective method of eradication – because “it would be misunderstood as some sort of poison coming from the sky”. Which it, uh, is.
 
TOTALLY LEGITIMATE SOURCE REFERENCES

Well, I’m not scared of libel from Kim Jong-il so here we go. Alongside counterfeiting, ‘car smuggling’, and oppression of his twenty-odd million prisoners, a major source of income for North Korea is good old fashioned heroin and methamphetamines. They produce the stuff, they export the stuff, they reportedly force toddlers to harvest poppies.
 
Although Washington has diplomatically left open the proposition that Kim Jong-il is genuinely uninvolved, most commentators agree that North K is a fully-fledged ‘narco-state’ – and reports of government-owned processing plants, state-owned cargo ships and drugs trading companies are rife. I’ll say it now: Kim Jong-il is everything Pablo Escobar wanted to be. Well, maybe not the pregnancy and Coke-bottle lenses, but certainly the rest of it.
 
TOTALLY LEGITIMATE SOURCE REFERENCES

Why is Winston Churchill number one on the list? Because he took cocaine and then smashed up Nazis. Honestly, as long as you’re taking down Hitler I’m pretty sure you’re off the hook on any sort of drug use, morbid obesity or even the odd horrible blunder (cheers for Gallipoli, Church).
 
During his youth (around the turn of the 20th Century), cocaine was perfectly legal and mostly taken in convenient pill form as a cure for sore throats and such. Yes, it was all as common as popping a Butter Menthol back in young Winny's day. To make it even radder, there’s documentary evidence suggesting that Church actually did the cocaine with Queen Victoria. One more time for posterity: Winston Churchill purportedly did cocaine with the Queen of England and then beat up Adolf Hitler. C’mon.

TOTALLY LEGITIMATE SOURCE REFERENCES
Freedman, D. (1994), ‘Experts push legalization of cocaine gum to wean addicts’, in San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 May 1994
Benedictus, L. (2005), ‘Cocaine, anyone?’, in The Guardian, 3 Feb 2005

 

 

 

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Comments

Joshua's picture

Bad Boys... and girls

Wed, 15/10/2008 - 13:16 — Joshua

Hilarious Owen. It's safe to say that most everyone knows about NK and Afghanistan but the (alleged) dirt you dug up on Cindy McCain is news to me. Do you really want a drug fiend in the White House? I'm just asking is all....

Owen's picture

Well

Wed, 15/10/2008 - 14:04 — Owen

Well to be fair she wouldn't be doing an awful lot around the White House besides some light dusting, but DO YOU REALLY WANT HER LIGHTLY DUSTING THE LAMPSHADES IN THE OVAL OFFICE??