<p>Up until about 100 years ago, it was common and accepted for highly intelligent people to be interested in consciousness-affecting drugs. From Thomas De Quincey to Samuel Taylor Coleridge to J.K. Huysmans, Arthur Rimbaud, and (of course) Sherlock Holmes. Basically, we didn’t start criminalizing non-medical drug use until the early 20th century. So Jefferson might well have felt comfortable in the 60s.</p>
<p>Jefferson and Lincoln are the obvious favorites in any brainy Presidents derby. That isn’t so interesting. What’s interesting, to me at least, is thinking about who else is in the race (and what it means about braininess). So I am more interested in Garfield and Tyler and Hoover and Carter than the Usual Suspects.</p>