Global Courant
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A preliminary field test on a white substance found in the White House reportedly came back positive for cocaine, law enforcement authorities said, and the U.S. Secret Service was investigating Tuesday how it got to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The presence of the substance — which has been sent for further investigation — came to light late Monday when a firefighter on the Washington D.C. Fire Department’s Hazardous Materials Team by radio“We have a yellow bar that says cocaine hydrochloride,” the Washington Post first reported.
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Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the Post that the discovery led to an heightened security alert and a brief evacuation of the executive mansion after it was found during a routine round of inspections.
Initial reports indicated that the substance was discovered in a reference library. The Associated Press, citing two officials not authorized to speak about the investigation, reported later Tuesday that the white powder was found “in an area accessible to tour groups, not in a particular office in the West Wing.”
Guglielmi had told the Washington Post that “an investigation is underway into the cause and manner” of how the substance entered the White House. Joe Biden was at Camp David at the time. US President and First Lady Jill Biden returned to the White House from the presidential retreat in Maryland on Tuesday morning.
An official familiar with the investigation told the newspaper that the amount of the substance was small.
It wouldn’t be the first time illegal drugs have entered the White House. Rapper Snoop Dogg said he smoked weed in a bathroom in 2013, and Willie Nelson confessed to smoking a joint on the roof of the White House during Jimmy Carter’s presidency.
British actor Erkan Mustafa said he smoked marijuana and smoked cocaine while visiting the White House during First Lady Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign. Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick said in 2011, she had tried to spike President Richard Nixon’s 1970 tea with LSD, but failed.
“I think Tricky Dick needs a little acid,” she later recalled thinking.
