Newt Gingrich (b. June 17, 1943)
Congressman Newt Gingrich co-introduced legislation to allow marijuana's use as a medicine at the Federal level on September 16, 1981. On March 19, 1982 he wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association, "We believe licensed physicians are competent to employ marijuana, and patients have a right to obtain marijuana legally, under medical supervision, from a regulated source. …Federal policies do not reflect a factual or balanced assessment of marijuana's use as a medicant."
Gingrich admitted that he smoked marijuana when he was in college. He stated in 1995 article from The Economist, "That was a sign we were alive and in graduate school in that era." One year later he attacked Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry for making the same admission, and charged without substantiation that one quarter of the White House staff used drugs. "See, when I smoked pot it was illegal, but not immoral. Now, it is illegal AND immoral. The law didn't change, only the morality," Gingrich said. "That's why you get to go to jail and I don't. Any questions?" Yeah, how can you be such a hypocrite?
Source: Hilary Stout, Wall Street Journal; 8/8/96