'Cocaine Decisions'
www.nlpwessex.org/docs/cocainedecisions.htm
US Political Junk Minds Through The Decades

'From John F Kennedy To George W Bush'
US Cocaine-Based Administration Down Through The Decades

Political Brain Health

Cocaine And Brain Serotonin

"During heavy cocaine use, the increased serotonin in the brain will bind to and activate these serotonin receptors beyond normal levels. The effect of this increased activation can be profound. Receptors can change based on how much they are activated, and, if they are activated all the time, they trigger mechanisms that are designed to restore balance. These mechanisms might downregulate serotonin receptors by decreasing their number on the surface of cells, or they might do so by changing the way that they interact with other proteins to which they must couple to be active or by inducing the action of endogenous peptides that naturally interfere with the function of the receptors. In any case, what Parsons and his colleagues observed was that serotonin-1B receptors are downregulated during extended cocaine use. Then, during withdrawal, the opposite happens. There is a significant depletion of serotonin in the brain during the acute stages of withdrawal. Parsons and his colleagues observed it to fall to half the normal level or less, and they found that this effect becomes even more pronounced with longer histories of cocaine use. Starved for stimulation because of the decrease in serotonin during withdrawal, the serotonin receptors can become significantly upregulated in number or function. This upregulation is persistent, says Parsons, and the increase in serotonin receptor activity may be behind the notable decrease in serotonin levels for a number of days during acute withdrawal. Experimentally, it lasts for at least three weeks in laboratory models. A whole bank of symptoms are associated with withdrawal, including depression, anxiety, impulsivity and drug craving. Many of these symptoms are most severe during the early stages of withdrawal, when the brain is most disturbed. However, some symptoms, most notably drug craving, can persist for months and even years. 'Serotonin-1B receptors have been implicated in the etiology of depression, anxiety and impulsivity,' says Parsons, 'and there's growing evidence that they could play a role in drug craving. Each of these symptoms have been implicated in the relapse to drug taking often encountered during withdrawal.'"
Serotonin Receptors and Drug Abuse
Scrips Research Institute News, Volume 3, Issue 29, 29 September 2003

Tip Of The Political Iceberg?
From JFK To Bush
US Cocaine-Based Administration Down Through The Decades

"Most political leaders become mentally or physically incapable of sound judgment and lose their grip on reality, argues David Owen in a new book. Elizabeth Grice talks to the former doctor and politician [British Foreign Secretary] .... Owen has published the whole opus, In Sickness and in Power, as a wake-up call about the consequences of physical and mental decline of our rulers. He discovers that Sir Anthony Eden was actually on uppers and downers - amphetamines and barbiturates - during the 1956 Suez Crisis and that John F Kennedy was having dilute cocaine injected five times a day into his back muscles at the time of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. 'I couldn't understand,' says Owen, 'how this man, who had handled the Cuban missile crisis so impressively in 1962, could have made such a monumental mess of the Bay of Pigs. I found it in his medical history. In 1961, a recreational drug user, on massive doses of steroids, he was completely out of control.'"
David Owen: Tony Blair and John F Kennedy may have been power crazy
Daily Telegraph 15 April 2008

"John F. Kennedy snorted cocaine with actor Peter Lawford while the two stayed at Frank Sinatra's Palm Springs house in the late 1950s, according to an excerpt from a tell-all book written by Sinatra's former valet. Writing about the close friendship between Sinatra and the future U.S. president, George Jacobs said that although the Rat Pack singer knew of Kennedy's weakness for women -- and went so far as to arrange liaisons for him -- he would not have approved of his drug use."
Kennedy Was Cocaine User, New Book Claims
Reuters, 13 May 2003

"Just 36 hours after a swirl of publicity broke last week over White House Health Policy Adviser Dr. Peter Bourne, 38, his letter of resignation landed with an unwelcome thump upon the desk of his already beleaguered friend, Jimmy Carter. As both Bourne and White House aides agreed, the resignation was an attempt to calm a growing furor, but it came too late to prevent front-page newspaper investigation of a politically explosive topic: the illegal use of drugs, including marijuana and cocaine, in the White House and elsewhere in the nation's capital...... Columnist Jack Anderson disclosed that Bourne had used cocaine at a party given last year by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a lobbying group that advocates repeal of the penalties for smoking pot. Although Bourne denied Anderson's account of the incident, TIME has confirmed it. The party was held in a renovated town house in central Washington. At one point, according to some of the guests, Bourne went into a bedroom, sniffed some coke through a rolled-up dollar bill and smoked some marijuana..... Meanwhile, Bourne added to his problems by telling New York Times Reporter James Wooten that there was 'a high incidence' of marijuana and occasional cocaine use among members of the White House staff."
The Wrong Rx for Peter Bourne
TIME, 31 July 1978

"Three members of the Secret Service's uniformed division assigned to the White House and two clerical workers for the National Security Council have been relieved of their duties because of an ongoing investigation of cocaine use. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said last night that the investigation has been 'under way for several months' and that two clerical employes of the NSC 'admitted drug use and were separated from the NSC.'"
Three White House Guards Suspended in Cocaine Probe; Two Clerks at NSC Also Relieved of Duties
Washington Post, 30 June 1988

"The Secret Service in 1993 balked at granting permanent passes to about a dozen people in the Clinton White House because of concerns about recent use of illegal drugs that in some instances included crack cocaine or hallucinogens, according to statements special agents gave Congress. The Secret Service said it dropped its objections and granted the employees permanent White House access only after the White House agreed to set up a special program that required people with troubling drug backgrounds to undergo surprise drug tests twice a year."
Drug Use Worried Secret Service; Special Program to Test Some White House Staff Met Agency Concerns
Washington Post, 18 July 1996

"As political media buzzed about whether or not Senator Barack Obama's admission eleven years ago that he used cocaine as a teenager would hurt his political prospects, Fox News ran a segment on 'Obama's Cocaine Confession.' Their conversation took an unusual turn, however, when Fox reporter Kirian Chetry said President Bush had also admitted to using cocaine. Obama 'talks very candidly, as did our current president, who admitted to using cocaine, correct? [Others demur] Well, who wrote, somebody wrote in a book -- well, he admitted that he had an alcoholic, he had a drinking problem. Who was it who said they witnessed him using cocaine? It was somebody who wrote a book...' As her colleagues tried to talk her down from the line of discussion, Chetry responded, 'Okay, okay, fine, but there were questions about the current president and whether he used cocaine or not as a young guy, but there's something about turning your life around...that people can accept'. A clip of the exchange is available for viewing below... "
Fox News reporter says Bush admitted using cocaine, then retreats, citing, 'questions'
Raw Story, 3 January 2007

"South Carolina Treasurer Thomas Ravenel, a former real estate developer and rising political star, was indicted Tuesday on federal cocaine charges. The millionaire — also the state chairman for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign — is accused of buying less than 500 grams of cocaine to share with other people in late 2005, U.S. Attorney Reggie Lloyd said. Ravenel, 44, is charged with distribution of cocaine, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. Giuliani's campaign sent out a prepared statement saying Ravenel had stepped down."
White House Hopeful Rudy Giuliani's South Carolina Campaign Chairman Indicted on Cocaine Charges
Associated Press, 19 June 2007

"For the 43rd President, a decision once taken is always right. The approach reflects not only Mr Bush's ingrained stubbornness but his ability to deceive not only others, but also himself. Mr McClellan offers as illustration a moment on the campaign trail in 1999, when he heard the governor/candidate talking on the phone to a friend about reports that he had used cocaine in his youth. Apparently, Mr Bush remarked that ... 'the media won't let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumours. The truth is I honestly don't remember whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back then, and I just don't remember.' In 2000 voters – battle-hardened by having to confront Bill Clinton's marijuana use ('I did not inhale') and explain to their curious children the finer points of the Monica Lewinsky affair – did not seem greatly bothered. They assumed Mr Bush might indeed have indulged in cocaine, just as he had indulged in the bottle which he had emphatically given up. But Mr McClellan drew a different lesson from the episode. 'I remember thinking to myself, how can that be?' he writes. 'How can someone simply not remember whether or not they used an illegal substance like cocaine? It didn't make a lot of sense.' On the other hand, Mr Bush wasn't, 'the kind of person to flat-out lie'" So, Mc McClellan concludes, 'I think he meant what he said in that conversation about cocaine ... I felt I was witnessing Bush convincing himself to believe something that was not true, and that, deep down, he knew was not true. And his reason for doing so is fairly obvious – political convenience.' And thus, by implication at least, it was with Iraq and Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction."
Falling out with the President: the devious world of George Bush
Independent, 29 May 2008

June 2008 - 'Globe' Tabloid Hits Trouble After Claiming President Bush 'On Cocaine In The White House' - ABC News Video Report - Click Here

"The White House was rocked yesterday by claims that the daughter of Joe Biden, the Vice-President, was shown on video snorting cocaine. The video purports to show Ashley Biden, 27, snorting lines of white powder at a house party in her home state of Delaware. It surfaced days after Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, declared that the United States shared the blame for Mexico's violent drug wars. 'Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,' Mrs Clinton said on a trip to Mexico. The video will embarrass Mr Biden, a teetotaller and an outspoken anti-drug crusader who coined the term “drug czar” in 1982 while campaigning for tougher action against illegal drugs.... This month Mr Biden swore in a new US drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, whose stepson has a history of marijuana arrests. The New York Post said that it had viewed about 90 seconds of a 43-minute video being offered for sale by an anonymous male acquaintance of Ms Biden, through a Washington lawyer. The video showed a woman resembling the Vice-President's daughter taking a red straw from her mouth, bending over a desk, inserting the straw into her nostril and snorting lines of white powder. The woman then stands up and starts talking with other people in the room as a young man - identified as her boyfriend - watches from behind. The camera, which appears not to be concealed, follows her as she moves around the room. At one point she shouts: 'Shut the f*** up!' Although the dialogue is unclear, representatives of the seller insist that that the woman speaks repeatedly about the drugs. 'At one point she pretty much complains that the line isn't big enough,' one told the newspaper. 'And she talks about her dad.' Radaronline.com, an online gossip site, said that one of its freelance reporters had also viewed the video. It described a man cutting up five lines of what is said to be cocaine, as the woman claimed to be Ms Biden jokes that the lines are not big enough....If the allegation is true, Ms Biden, a social worker in Delaware, would not be the first relative to embarrass the White House with alcohol or drug abuse. Gerald Ford's wife, Betty, struggled with alcoholism and addiction to painkillers and, after a family intervention, opened the famed Betty Ford Centre to addicts. President Lyndon Johnson's brother, Sam, admitted in his memoir to being a problem drinker. Roger Clinton, dubbed Headache by his brother's Secret Service guards, spent a year in prison after his 1984 conviction for cocaine trafficking. George W. Bush's twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna, were charged with using a fake ID to buy margaritas in a Texan bar even though they were under the legal drinking age of 21. Last month Mr Obama's halfbrother, George, was arrested in his native Kenya for alleged possession of marijuana."
US Vice-President Joe Biden's daughter Ashley filmed snorting lines of cocaine
London Times, 30 March 2009

Snorting With Friends - Coke At The Top Of US Society

"The marriage between John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette was on the rocks, amid problems with drug use. The pair were killed on 16 July 1999, along with Bessette's sister Lauren, when the single-engine plane Kennedy was piloting crashed into the sea near Martha's Vineyard.  As the only son of assassinated President John F Kennedy, JFK Jr was the subject of worldwide attention for all of his life. His good looks and wealth made him the crown prince of the Kennedy clan....Through a series of interviews with friends, the majority of them unnamed, the book claims that in reality Bessette was a heavy drugs user, leading an active social life that placed her at odds with her husband. According to fashion industry friends of Bessette's quoted in the book, Kennedy caught his wife snorting lines of cocaine with friends at the couple's New York apartment."
Book details JFK Jr problems
BBC Online, 1 July 2003

'Serotonin Rising'
The Perfect Antidote To Cocaine Induced Serotoin Deficits