Article - The lesson of Justice Rehniquist's drug addiction - US ...

Newly released FBI records reveal that a physician prescribed a powerful sleeping pill for the late William Rehnquist when he was an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. According to these records, the doctor prescribed 500 milligrams of Placidyl every evening. Instead, the justice popped 1500 milligrams every night before bed. The problem apparently came to a head in 1981 when, according to a shrink interviewed by the FBI, the family admitted awareness of long-standing slurred speech which seems to coincide with the administration of Placidyl. A month-long detox program weaned His Honor off the addiction in 1982, we are told. Its instructive to ask what sorts of decisions the Justice was rendering at the peak of his drug addiction in 1981. While hardly an exhaustive review of the cases in which Justice Rehnquist weighed in, here are a couple of quick examples: In Robbins v.