# Could the serving POTUS smoke a joint and get away with it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 22, 2016, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404 "2016-10-22T22:29:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2016, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/21 "2016-10-23T00:48:25Z")
IIRC, someone once wrote that the Secret Service actually takes an almost condoning/approving attitude towards presidential shenanigans such as extramarital sex; the idea being that the POTUS is under immense psychological stress 24/7 and that if the sex or whatnot is relieving the mental stress, well, OK. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2016, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/22 "2016-10-23T02:05:10Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > seems a former president got away with extra fun with a young girl (not his wife) for a while before people found out about it. And that was in the white house too. (And yes I know that was not breaking any laws) _Which_ former president? IIRC, there was more than one. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/23 "2016-10-23T02:07:49Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > Look up the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” for clarity. That phrase does NOT correspond to “breaking any law.” This made my day. Please. Please, please, please give me your absolute definition for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Something official, of course. In writing, in law, in modern American jurisprudence. Heck, once you get desperate I’ll let you go to the historical record and look at what Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton got impeached for. That ought to give you oodles of assurance as to what the phrase actually does “correspond” to and then you can tell me and Congress. I’ll give you a cookie if you can do it. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2016, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/24 "2016-10-23T16:08:39Z")
Clearly a high crime. Jokes aside, a high crime is whatever congress decides it is. Invading Iraq would be a perfect example. Only the president can make such a decision. As for misdemeanor, I guess that has its usual meaning and pot smoking is illegal under federal law. So clearly impeachable. But it would not lead to conviction and the house would end up with even more egg on its face. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/25 "2016-10-24T15:40:14Z")
I know it’s not exactly relevant, but during the 80’s I occasionally smoked a joint on the steps of the US Capital. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/26 "2016-10-24T16:14:11Z")
Are Secret Service bodyguards licensed to act as policemen? As mentioned upthread , they didn’t interfere when Malia Obama apparently smoked a joint in public. If their only job is to protect a politician’s physical safety, do they have any authority over regular citizens? (other than , I assume, being allowed to shoot them, if they appear to be trying to assassinate somebody.) But can a Secret Service bodyguard arrest _me_ for, say, a driving offense? Or for underage drinking? Or pickpocketing somebody in a crowd at a political rally? Or would he have to call a local cop and let him put the cuffs on me while reading me my Miranda rights? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/27 "2016-10-24T16:20:09Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > But can a Secret Service bodyguard arrest _me_ for, say, a driving offense? Or for underage drinking? Or pickpocketing somebody in a crowd at a political rally? > Or would he have to call a local cop and let him put the cuffs on me while reading me my Miranda rights? Secret Service are all federal law enforcement officers. All the crimes you just mentioned are state offences. I’m sure they could hold you for the local cops if they felt it was necessary, but they’re not looking to enforce local laws. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/28 "2016-10-24T16:41:23Z")
> [@harmonicamoon](#): > > I don’t think there is Secret Service when the POTUS is playing hide the salami. True, but bedsport doesn’t leave the room smelling like pot smoke for the next couple of days. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/29 "2016-10-24T16:45:18Z")
The Secret Service are not there to stop their protectees from breaking laws, they’re there to protect them. Imagine a protectee (POTUS or one of his family) feeling like they needed to ditch their security detail in order to toke up or meet up with a mistress: that compromises the Secret Service’s ability to protect them. So what happens in front of the protection detail, stays with the protection detail. They’re not going to blab, it’s a direct security concern if they did. ---
**Author:** ![Me\_Billy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Me\_Billy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Me_Billy)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/30 "2016-10-24T17:10:16Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > The Secret Service are not there to stop their protectees from breaking laws, they’re there to protect them… That is it! ^^^ Persons the Secret Service has protected in the past (which includes teenagers of Presidents), have done illegal things. They don’t report it. But they will not participate in anything which would be an illegal action on their part of course (Secret Service). ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/31 "2016-10-24T19:52:17Z")
Seems to me the concern would be less about a broken law than about having a President under the influence of drugs in the event of a national emergency. “Mr. President, we’ve picked up two Russian ICBM’s over the Atlantic.” “_Wicked!!!_” On a related note, while I’ve seen Presidents having a beer now and then (usually for a photo op, and it always seems to go unfinished), I would assume they are discouraged from ever drinking to excess. Though I’m also sure it must have happened at some point in history that our Commander-in-Chief has been totally stinking blotto. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/32 "2016-10-24T20:34:52Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > Seems to me the concern would be less about a broken law than about having a President under the influence of drugs in the event of a national emergency. > “Mr. President, we’ve picked up two Russian ICBM’s over the Atlantic.” > “_Wicked!!!_” > > On a related note, while I’ve seen Presidents having a beer now and then (usually for a photo op, and it always seems to go unfinished), I would assume they are discouraged from ever drinking to excess. Though I’m also sure it must have happened at some point in history that our Commander-in-Chief has been totally stinking blotto. Nixon after Watergate was reported as a [stinking drunk many times](https://www.thefix.com/white-house-wet-brains-history-presidential-drinking). > [@](#): > > “During Watergate, Nixon took Seconal [a barbiturate] as a sleep-aid, and Dilantin, a drug that leveled you out and was later diagnosed to people with bipolar disorder,” says Abrams. “It wasn’t so much that he was a huge drinker, but one scotch with the pills would mess him up. He’d drunk dial people in his cabinet, his staff, or his old football coach, who would listen to Nixon until he’d mumble himself to sleep.” > > More than just the loss of his dignity, according to Weiner, Nixon’s constant insomnia and drinking fueled his aggression in the war in Vietnam—he often promised in a fit of rage that he would “bomb the bejesus out of them”—and actively worked to spread rumors to the Russians and Chinese that he was planning a nuclear attack against Vietnam. > > On October 20, 1973, during the height of the Watergate scandal, when the House began impeachment proceedings against the president, a standoff in the Middle East between Egypt and Israel grew dire when Soviet forces began shipping missiles into the region. At a time when the nation, and much of the world, were looking to the president for leadership, Nixon was passed out drunk in the family quarters of the White House. His staff continued working to dissolve the crisis, while trying to keep the Russians from finding out that the U.S. was temporarily without a president. > > “As Nixon sank deeper into the swamp of Watergate, [Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger gained an imperial power over foreign policy, and [White House Chief of Staff Alexander] Haig behaved like the acting president of the United States,” Weiner writes. “Nixon was increasingly incapable of playing his role as the leader of the free world.” > > “People with an underdeveloped or poorly developed sense of self often become inebriated in order to attain an internal state that matches the way that they want the world to see them,” says Everhart. “People with those kinds of issues rarely ascend to power, or if they do, they don’t remain in power very long. They self-destruct, because they can’t maintain the facade of strength needed to govern . . . Nixon seemed to have a very fragile psyche. He’s a lot like Stalin in that way: Two unstable individuals whose internal strife was projected onto the population they were trying to govern.” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/33 "2016-10-24T22:42:09Z")
> [@Enola\_Gay](#): > > Al Gore? According to [reliable sources](http://www.theonion.com/article/biden-gets-grow-light-delivered-to-white-house-und-36597), “Diamond Joe” Biden may be a better bet. No one should have to put up with [shitty ditch weed](http://www.theonion.com/article/biden-chokes-while-describing-hardworking-american-53364). ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/34 "2016-10-24T22:50:49Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > That’s one of the most absurd things I’ve ever read. That isn’t anywhere close to impeachable and anyone proposing it would be ridiculed. Neither is doing an intern impeachable in and of itself, but if you can get the president to lie under oath about lighting up, _then_ you can impeach him. I’d go with the pot brownies myself. They also don’t make the bedroom smell like weed. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/35 "2016-10-24T23:56:59Z")
Did he smoke 2 joints in the morning, and smoke 2 joints at night? Did he smoke 2 joints in the afternoon, and make him feel aw-right? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2016, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/36 "2016-10-25T00:55:56Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Neither is doing an intern impeachable in and of itself, but if you can get the president to lie under oath about lighting up, _then_ you can impeach him. True but the OP didn’t ask about perjury and obstruction of justice. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2016, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/37 "2016-10-25T10:45:37Z")
While President Ulysses Grant was pulled over for speeding (on a horse. Grant was a first rate horseman). Apparently the officer didn’t want to cite him but Grant insisted that he do his duty. > **[D.C. Police Once Gave the President a Speeding Ticket](https://dcist.com/story/12/10/04/dc-police-once-gave-the-president-a/)** > > Think the cops are giving you a hard time about driving fast? They'll give a ticket to anyone, including the president. Ulysses S. Grant once got a speeding ticket while going for a drive. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2016, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404/38 "2016-10-25T13:12:51Z")
Only a third-hand account, but [JFK supposedly toked up in the White House](http://www.snopes.com/jfk-marijuana-use/). I suspect if the President says to one of his aides, “get me some boo”, the aides would be able to get some into the White House. If the President says to his Secret Service detail, “I won’t be needing you for the rest of the night” they would leave the room and he could spark one up in peace. Could he be impeached for it? Sure - high (heh) crimes and misdemeanors means whatever Congress wants it to. Related question - is there any kind of confidentiality privilege for the Secret Service, so they could refuse to testify about a crime the President committed in their presence? Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-serving-potus-smoke-a-joint-and-get-away-with-it/769404.md?page=1)