The kid who sold crack to the president

(Apologies for the terrible video, but it\’s all I could find.)

There\’s a great post on MetaFilter right now about the story behind President George H. W. Bush’s “This is crack cocaine” address to the nation.

\”This is crack cocaine,\” Bush solemnly announced, holding up a plastic bag filled with a white chunky substance in his Sept. 5 speech on drug policy. It was “seized a few days ago in a park across the street from the White House . . . . It could easily have been heroin or PCP.” In 1989 the White House came up with the idea of having George H.W. Bush hold up a bag of crack on national television in order to illustrate how bad the US drug problem had gotten. They decided to have a drug buy set up in Lafayette Park, directly across the street from the White House, to obtain the props for his speech. They contacted a DEA agent who set up a drug buy with a Spingarn High School senior with no prior arrest record, but things didn\’t go as planned….

It’s quite a “Keystone Kops” story; I definitely recommend checking it out.