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Drug net draws closer around Bill Clinton

While the official campaign behind Bob Dole's White House bid is careful to avoid involvement in dirty tricks, party loyalists are taking matters into their own hands.

They have been encouraged by increasing interest in allegations of drug use.

Last week the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post speculated that Clinton's reluctance to reveal his medical records might be related to drugs. Among alleged "leads", activists are trying to get transcripts of sealed testimony by Sharlene Wilson, a police informant who allegedly told a federal grand jury in December 1990 that she had provided Clinton with cocaine when he was Governor of Arkansas.

Roger Clinton, the President's brother, convicted for dealing in cocaine, implicated Clinton in surveillance tapes recorded by Arkansas State Police in 1984 and obtained by a freelance journalist.

He says of Clinton, then Governor of Arkansas: "Got to get some for my brother; he's got a nose like a vacuum cleaner."

A Republican on Capitol Hill said the interest in the President and drugs was unofficial: "If the Republican National Committee had evidence of Clinton's drug use it wouldn't want to use it. Not directly. This sort of thing could blow up in their hands."

Nevertheless, as part of its public campaign, the Dole team has launched television advertisements that show President Clinton talking to an audience of teenagers on MTV about drugs. On the clip Clinton is asked if he would inhale marijuana if given another chance. "Sure, if I could, I tried before," he said, laughing.

Mr Dole has made increasing drug use among teenagers the centre-piece of his increasingly desperate effort to cut into Clinton's huge lead in the opinion polls. Strategists believe that it is the one issue that has enough resonance among voters to turn around the President's current 15 per cent poll lead.

Republicans are also taking an intense interest in Clinton's relationship with Dan Lasater, a Little Rock tycoon who was convicted of distributing cocaine in 1986. Lasater was a major contributor to Clinton's political campaigns in Arkansas and allowed him the use of a private jet. Clinton pardoned Lasater in 1990.

21 September 1996: Clinton gives TV hint of welfare role for Hillary
20 September 1996: Dole's election hopes take another tumble

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