Aides: Clinton Never Used Coke

With renewed media interest over whether politicians have dabbled in drugs, White House officials said President Clinton has never used cocaine.

White House press secretary Joe Lockhart said Mr. Clinton told his staff he never used cocaine and that he was never in the presence of cocaine users, reports CBS White House Correspondent Bill Plante.

Lockhart said he knew the issue would come up again because of the attention on Texas Governor George W. Bush.

Bush's presidential campaign has been dogged by questions over whether he used drugs when he was a young man. He eventually said he has not used illegal drugs in the past 25 years, but would not elaborate.

Lockhart noted that the question about Mr. Clinton's possible contact with drugs first arose during the 1992 campaign, when he admitted he had tried marijuana but said he didn't inhale. At that time, a top aide in the governor's office denied that Mr. Clinton had used cocaine.

"The president addressed this issue in the 1992 campaign," Lockhart said. "It hasn't changed."

Gennifer Flowers, who claimed to have had a long-term liaison with Mr. Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas, alleged in a television interview that Mr. Clinton told her he had used the illegal drug.

"The president has never done cocaine," Jim Kennedy, spokesman for the White House counsel's office, told The Washington Times. "That applies to his entire life."