Author: Charles Frank

Chip Carter Says He Was Warned By White House About Drug Raid The New York Times

President Joe Biden is, of course, of an older generation and has taken tough anti-drug stances in the past. At least five staffers lost their jobs early in the administration because of past drug use, and Hunter Biden’s substance abuse problems are well known. In today’s world, with widespread marijuana legalization, marijuana usage is less of a problem. Cocaine, however, especially when found in the White House, still raises eyebrows. We don’t yet know whose cocaine it was nor how it got there, but based on history, and my security official friend’s observation, it is perhaps unsurprising that this incident took place in a Democratic rather than a Republican White House. Clinton, and many in his administration, shared many of that generation’s lax attitude toward substance abuse.

“Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself,” he said in 1977, adding that marijuana sales should still be strictly criminalized. “Governor Carter Is not at odds with and is not disputing Mr. Anderson’s report,” Mr. Powell said in a briefing to reporters here. Under his administration, the Compassionate Investigational New Drug was established, providing select patients suffering from certain conditions with access to marijuana joints produced with federal authorization. It was later revealed that the 1978 cannabis session on top of the executive mansion involved first son Chip Carter. In a small bar in Mexico Beach, Fla., Jimmy Carter’s eldest son Chip was drinking beer with several other young men on the afternoon of July 20, 1977. His companions included the skipper of the Foxy Lady, a drab work boat that Carter, who was vacationing that month with then Wife Caron and Son James at her family’s house near Panama City, had chartered on several occasions.

And Chip developed a more serious drug problem, which led to a long estrangement from his father. Chip and his father reconciled before Carter became president, and Chip later shared a “big fat Austin torpedo” with country star Willie Nelson on the roof of the White House. Marion Goldin’s production team followed James Earl “Chip” Carter through a grueling schedule as he campaigned for his father through Kansas, Nebraska, and both Dakotas.

The historic anecdote has taken on renewed relevance in the wake of the Secret Service finding cocaine inside of President Joe Biden’s White House. According to multiple reports, a preliminary test of an unknown white substance found inside the White House on Sunday turned out to be cocaine. On Tuesday, the Secret Service announced that cocaine had been found in the White House on Sunday evening. The discovery caused an evacuation—though President Joe Biden was at Camp David and not present. The Secret Service told Forbes the substance was found in a work area in the West Wing. Though it didn’t happen at the White House, David Cross admitted to snorting cocaine at a White House Correspondents’ dinner in 2009, and he estimated that he was about 65 feet away from President Barack Obama when he ducked under a table and snorted it.

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After former President Carter corrected the record, the music legend admitted that he had omitted Chip Carter so he could keep the president’s son out of any trouble. Country music legend Willie Nelson once smoked weed with President Jimmy Carter’s son Chip on the roof of the White House, a private and now infamous historic moment that the former president himself later confirmed. Mr. Carter’s second son, Chip Carter, who is 26 years old, has said he has smoked marijuana in the past. He plans to move into the White House with his expectant wife, Caron.

In a departure from traditional campaigns, the candidates in the 1976 election were not shy about using their families. Questions to one of the three sons of presidential candidate Jimmy Carter ranged from religion, music, sex, and drugs, to Chip’s own political ambitions, his relationship with his father, and his reaction to the latter’s interview with Playboy. Clinton’s administration was also more casual with staff drug usage than its predecessors had been. Nevertheless, it still had to make accommodations around security clearance questions. According to FBI agent Gary Aldrich, up to a quarter of the Clinton White House staffers had sufficient “serious experience with significant illegal drugs” that they could not easily get security clearances.

1. President Joe Biden is, of course, of an older generation and has taken tough anti-drug stances in the past.
2. “Chip and I are buddies too. He was showing me around the White House, the basement, you know they have a bowling alley down there,” Nelson told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in 2020 after the evening.
3. Bennett was a staunch opponent of illegal drugs, but he had also once gone on a date with rock star and drug overdose victim Janis Joplin.

According to Aldrich, the Clinton approach was to delay or not seek clearances so as to allow those people to maintain their administration positions. Dwight Eisenhower disliked illegal drugs so much that he refused to watch movies with known drug users in them. Fischer even tried to sneak some Mitchum films past Ike, but Eisenhower, despite his movie-loving proclivities, would get up and leave the theater if he ever saw Mitchum’s name or face on the screen. In a trailer released last week, Carter is shown talking about his relationship with the music industry—including his friendship with artists like Nelson and Bob Dylan. At one point, he mentions how Nelson, a cannabis culture icon, disclosed in a biography that he smoked marijuana during a trip to the White House.

In 1975, Republican President Gerald Ford’s 23-year-old son Jack caused a stir by admitting to the Portland Oregonian that he had smoked marijuana. The young Ford said, “I’ve smoked marijuana before, and I don’t think that’s so exceptional for people growing up in the 1960s.” Gerald Ford wasn’t alone. Jack used marijuana and LSD as a ploy to get discharged from the Navy.

Marijuana in the White House

However, he said it was just a “tiny granule of coke” and not enough to get him high—he just did it to be able to say he had snorted cocaine in the same room as the president. Mr. Powell said Mr. Carter had finished his inaugural speech today, “one of the briefer speeches, certainly for a first inaugural.” It will be “uniquely his,” the press secretary said, although there were suggestions and contributions from others, including several Cabinet members. Navy spokesmen in Washington also confirmed the report and said Mr. Carter’s son, a veteran of the Vietnam War, had been one of 58 young naval students caught smoking marijuana at a nuclear power training site in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and was discharged shortly thereafter.

As for George H.W. Bush, he selected former Education Secretary Bill Bennett as the nation’s first drug czar, or head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Bennett was a staunch opponent of illegal drugs, but he had also once gone on a date with rock star and drug overdose victim Janis Joplin. Nelson was not the only musician who indulged at the Carter White House. According to David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, & Nash fame, one member of the band lit a joint in the Oval Office while the band was on a visit with Jimmy Carter in 1977.

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A third son, Jeff Carter, who is also accompanying his Parents to Washington, has not publicly discussed the subject. During his time in office, Carter spoke in favor of decriminalizing marijuana possession and replacing criminal penalties with civil fines. Jordan told Powell that he thought the accusation would “be a three-day story and blow over.” The press-savvy Powell knew better, telling Jordan, “Are you kidding? The president’s top aides, a president who is a born-again Christian, Studio 54, drugs. … Batten down the hatches because we are going to have a bumpy few days here.” No legal action was taken against the pair, but the story got a lot of press attention and cost Jordan $175,000 in legal fees.

Indeed, Carter was arranging with the owner to use the Foxy Lady for a fishing trip with 20 or so friends.

A Family Affair

Clinton famously admitted having a joint in his mouth, although he softened it by claiming he did not inhale. Clinton’s brother Roger indulged as well, serving over a year in jail on cocaine charges. He received a pardon from his brother as the administration was ending. Clinton Vice President Al Gore was also found to have smoked marijuana intermittently in the early 1970s.

In a new documentary being released this month, Former President Jimmy Carter (D) discusses the time his son smoked marijuana at the White House with musician Willie Nelson during his administration. President Ford’s son Jack has admitted that he also has smoked the drug. Unlike President Ford, President‐elect Carter favors a decriminalization of marijuana. Then he added, “But when you [Republican] guys come in, we have to overlook shady business practices.” I thought about this conversation in light of the recent Secret Service disclosures about finding cocaine in the Biden White House. Looking back at the people and policies of the past 75 years of White House history, it’s pretty clear that my security office friend was right and Democrats have generally been more lenient on drug issues than Republicans. Nelson initially wrote in his 1988 autobiography that he smoked with a White House servant.

One of us, and I will not say who, lit a joint in the Oval Office just to be able to say he’d done it, you know? “Chip and I are buddies too. He was showing me around the White House, the basement, you know they have a bowling alley down there,” Nelson told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in 2020 after the evening. “We went into the Lincoln bedroom and all that good stuff. “And then, we went up on the roof and looked around and that was pretty cool.”