Gregory Angelo, a 41-year-old who served as executive director and president of Log Cabin Republicans from 2013 to 2018, has become the spokesperson for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). The office oversees the president’s international and domestic anti-drug efforts and is headed by a director known as the “Drug Czar.”
While the White House confirmed Angelo’s new role as the ONDCP’s spokesperson, Gregory himself has not yet publicly commented on his new job.
Related: Log Cabin Republicans executive director resigns over Trump endorsement
Among its other activities, the ONDCP also has a history of spending hundreds of millions to insert anti-drug messages into mainstream TV shows and nightly news programs without disclosing the office’s involvement. A 2006 report by the office and the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that the ONDCP’s anti-marijuana ads were associated with “weaker anti-drug norms and increases in the perceptions that others use marijuana.”
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The ONDCP also considers cannabis a Schedule I drug with “a high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use” — on the same level as deadly opioids, crack-cocaine, and heroin — even though it is prescribed for a range of ailments like seizures and arthritis. Notably, alcohol isn’t considered a Schedule I drug even though 17 drug scientists in 2010 determined that it has the highest impacts of self- and societal-harms out of all drugs.
In the past, Angelo called President Donald Trump “the most pro-LGBT Republican president in history” but refused to mention him at a 2017 event the LCR held at Trump Hotel. Angelo also expressed Islamophobia following the June 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting and publicly opposed the comprehensive LGBTQ nondiscrimination law known as the Equality Act.
Angelo told LGBTQ Nation in February 2017, “I feel far more welcome as a gay man in Republican circles than I ever do as a Republican in gay circles.”
However, under Angelo’s leadership, the LCR called the 2016 GOP national platform “the most anti-LGBT platform the Republican Party has ever had.” (The GOP is re-using the platform for 2020.) Though Angelo was no longer leader at the time, the LCR endorsed Trump for re-election in 2019.
