On Sunday night, the White House was briefly evacuated due to the discovery of white powder in a work area. Apparently, the white powder turned out to be cocaine. Right-wing circles online are currently having a field day with the news, as is our former president. (The Bidens were not home at the time, and there’s no evidence the Bolivian marching powder had anything to do with the family.)
This is certainly not the first illicit substance to be found in the presidential residence! Thanks to staffers, first ladies, and sometimes presidents themselves, the White House has seen more than its fair share of stashed baggies. Mary Todd Lincoln presumably left laudanum all over the place. Poor William Henry Harrison’s doctor used an awful lot of Dover’s powder (ipecac plus opium?!?) on the president during his 31 brief days in office. And of course, Thomas Jefferson literally grew opium poppies at Monticello.
But let’s just take the past 100 or so years: Here’s a historically semi-plausible list of the most shocking illicit substance one could imagine hidden in each president’s White House.
Joe Biden’s White House: cocaine
Donald Trump’s White House: ivermectin
Barack Obama’s White House: marijuana
George W. Bush’s White House: Ritalin
Bill Clinton’s White House: Viagra filched from early FDA testing
George H.W. Bush’s White House: 2-percent milk
Ronald Reagan’s White House: diet pills
Jimmy Carter’s White House: caffeinated soda
Gerald Ford’s White House: poppers
Richard Nixon’s White House: speed
Lyndon B. Johnson’s White House: steroids
John F. Kennedy’s White House: LSD
Harry Truman’s White House: an enormous chunk of uranium
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s White House: crushed rhino horn
Herbert Hoover’s White House: the blood of the poor
Calvin Coolidge’s White House: cocaine
Warren Harding’s White House: arsenic
Woodrow Wilson’s White House: Dr. Ralph Jehosephat’s Guaranteed Pure Health Tonic, Unguent, and Memory Enhancer (cocaine)