President John F. Kennedy is often thought of as a partaker in debauchery; called a sex addict, a drug addict, an adulterer. I will focus on JFK’s drug use in this post. In episode six of “The Untold History of the United States”, ‘JFK to the Brink’, there is a reference made to JFK’s addiction to pain killers. I wanted to explore that further… Was JFK just an addict or did he have good reason for taking the medications he did? The answer is a bit of both.
JFK had a number of medical disorders which he hid and even outright denied to the public; including such illnesses as, colitis, prostatitis, Addison's disease, and severe osteoporosis of the lower back (ABC News). He suffered terribly on a daily basis due to these conditions. In order to function it was necessary that JFK be medicated; he was on as many as 12 different medications at one time, including: “codeine, Demerol and methadone for pain; Ritalin, a stimulant; meprobamate and librium for anxiety; barbiturates for sleep; thyroid hormone; and injections of a blood derivative, gamma globulin, a medicine that combats infections” (id.).
To determine whether the medications he took were abused or necessary to his health remains inconclusive because he kept his medical records under great security. JFK wasn't the first president to mislead the public about his good health (Roosevelt, Nixon) and I’m sure he won’t be the last. Good health or not, JFK is among those presidents of the highest approval, with a peaking rate of 80 percent (Washington Post). Overall, his reliance on drugs didn’t seem to much affect his performance while in office.
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