I certainly don’t use the term “junky” lightly, but we’re talking about more than a decade long, hardcore addiction to incredibly strong painkillers. It certainly makes mild drug use by former and current Presidents (and any hopefuls) seemingly irrelevant.
From Law.com…
The FBI’s 1986 report on Rehnquist’s drug dependence was not released at the time of [...]

So not only is marijuana a $35 billion cash crop, it’s reportedly our country’s largest.
From LA Times:
A report released today by a marijuana public policy analyst contends that the market value of pot produced in the U.S. exceeds $35 billion � far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as corn, soybeans and [...]

in incarcerations.
From Reuters:
“A U.S. Justice Department report released on November 30 showed that a record 7 million people — or one in every 32 American adults — were behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of last year. Of the total, 2.2 million were in prison or jail.
According to the International Center [...]

Afghanistan’s opium poppy crop is the largest on record. Junkies breath a collective sigh of relief.
From Wash Post:
Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent of the world’s heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush administration reported yesterday.
In addition to a 26 percent [...]

Acoording to his contemporaries, Haggard didn’t just buy meth…
The Rev. Ted Haggard agreed to resign as leader of the New Life Church after its independent investigative board recommended removal, saying he was guilty “of sexually immoral conduct.”
“We, the Overseer Board of New Life Church, have concluded our deliberations concerning the moral failings of Pastor [...]

…but not sex.
This is as I suspected. It’s much easier to live down a drug problem then a so-called sexual deviance. And unless any other evidence comes out, it will always be a he said/he said scenario. So it appears as if Haggard could be off the hook when it comes to the sex [...]

Listen, I don’t usually get into the politics of personal destruction, but this is one of those rare instances where somebody is revealed as an incredible hypocrite. Plus, this the guy who says he talks to the White House every Monday morning, and that’s non-trivial
From KKTV:
A sudden about-face in the scandal facing New Life Church’s [...]

And guess who smokes?
Barack Obama.
As the scrutiny of every little detai about the junior senator from Illinois begins, Michael Currie Schaffer writes in The New Republic that Obama’s nicotine habit could furnish a welcome populist touch in a party infamous for upscale, Whole(Foods)ier-Than-Thou elitism:
[A]mong the healthy living smart-set types who represent the elite of both [...]

Apparently, yes.
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that if a motorist is carrying large sums of money, it is automatically subject to confiscation. In the case entitled, “United States of America v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit took that amount of cash away from Emiliano Gomez Gonzolez, [...]

Apparently we’re looking overseas for more than just customer service:
“Twenty years ago, drugs were dropping the cardiac mortality rate from 20 percent to 15 percent,” says Dhiraj Narula, medical director of Quintiles ECG, a contract-research firm that organizes trials for major multinationals. “Today we’re looking at drugs that will take you from 6 percent mortality [...]

Some in our government would like to know.
Eleven states have passed laws making it legal for patients to use marijuana for medical purposes. The Supreme Court in Gonzalez v. Raich (2005) held that states could still pass and continue to maintain their own medical marijuana laws. However, the same decision also held that the DEA [...]