Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro might act high, but did he ever personally bang the bong?

Shapiro is one of America’s most prominent aspiring candidates craving White House power even more than Snoop Dog wants another hit off the water pipe. Television host Bill Maher, one of America’s biggest publicly self-proclaimed potheads, recently interviewed Shapiro but didn’t ask Shapiro about weed.

Did Shapiro ever get high?

The governor’s senior deputy press secretary Rosie Lapowsky doesn’t want to talk about it.

Lapowsky steadfastly refuses to answer my simple cannabis questions about her boss, a take-me-higher-profile public servant who’s pushing legalization of a billion-dollar recreational weed industry in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. No matter how many times I’ve asked (and I’ve been asking for more than a month) Lapowsky goes mum when I inquire whether the governor ever got toasted, roasted and stretched out in a pasture of freshly mown herb.

Former President Bill Clinton said he didn’t inhale. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris for whom Shapiro campaigned in 2024 to win the election said she did. When Harris rejected Shapiro as a potential vice presidential running mate he kicked into high gear and ramped up his unofficial campaign as a high roller politician hallucinating about higher office.

I first requested in a February 13^th telephone conversation that Lapowsky ask Shapiro when he last got high. She indicated she would ask the busy governor my question and seemed agreeable to setting up a brief interview for me with her boss.

Simple question: Did he or didn’t he?

How can Shapiro wrangle for full-blown recreational legalization without knowing the happy daze feeling he’s trying to deal on the marijuana market? Is endorsing cannabis more difficult if he never himself got ripped? But maybe Shapiro hasn’t ever blasted off with his best buds. An increasing number of health care professionals argue cannabis use disorder is rising and even adds to a higher risk of death for users. Still, if Shapiro is embarrassed about his stale white bread straight persona, maybe some silly stoned state senator will turn him on.

Just level with the people, bro.

In a February 20th email titled “GUBERNATORIAL WEED” I asked Lapowsky, “Has Gov. Josh Shapiro ever used cannabis in any form in a so-called recreational setting? If so, when?  If not, why not?  If so, did he roll his own joint?  Did he buy from a dealer? Maybe an ounce or a pound? Was he sitting cross-legged at a pot party smoking a joint listening to the Grateful Dead?”

In that same email I also asked Lapowsky about Col. Christopher Paris whom Shapiro appointed to command the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP), the oldest state police organization in the nation.

“I’m interested in whether Paris, another coal cracker like us, has ever used cannabis in a recreational setting,” I wrote, mentioning the coal region because Lapowsky told me she grew up in Archbald in Lackawanna County.

“Readers and taxpayers need to know if Pennsylvania’s most powerful policymakers ever got or get high themselves as they decide legalization,” I wrote in my email.

On February 21 I emailed PSP Communications Office Director Lt. Adam Reed.

“I’m writing a series of columns about the possible legalization of recreational cannabis in Pennsylvania,” I said in the email. “When was the last time Commissioner Christopher Paris used recreational cannabis? Under what circumstances? If Paris never used cannabis why not?”

I wrote another email to Reed on March 1. Following up March 3 with a phone call, I left a message with a staffer because Reed was out of the office for the day. Lt. Reed never responded to my requests for information about whether Pennsylvania’s top cop ever broke the law or got high on legalized weed in another state.

Did he or didn’t he? Smoking state secrets are the mark of a sick police state, not a healthy and transparent democracy.

This isn’t the first time I’ve asked pompous public servants about reefer madness. When I wrote regularly award-winning news columns in the late 1990s for the Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre I asked conservative U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum about his pothead past. We had both foraged as students through the wacky weed jungle at Penn State.

Santorum dismissed my question by saying he already publicly discussed his past marijuana use. I explained to the senator at a press conference packed with police officials that I knew he had acknowledged past illegal drug use but wanted details. Did Santorum buy a U-Haul load? Did feeling fine on cloud nine feel better than living life as a dull, right-wing family values Republican? Did he want to trip the light fantastic again?

Not pleased with my blow-your-mind journalism, Puff the magic senator either personally or through a staffer contacted my editor who falsely accused me of misquoting Santorum. When I played her the tape of the public exchange my accuracy burned hot as the freshly lit tip of a glowing joint in a dormitory drug den.

On February 25 I emailed Lapowsky again.

“Have you asked Gov. Josh Shapiro my questions about his past and/or present recreational drug use? Has anyone in the governor’s office instructed you not to respond to my questions?”

No response.

On February 26 I again emailed Lapowsky.

“The story’s getting weird, Rosie. And, like Hunter Thompson said, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. Am I being blackballed by the governor? Yours in the spirit of government weed and the First Amendment.”

No response.

Impressed by Shapiro’s vigor as a wannabe ganjapreneur pushing recreational cannabis growth and sizzle as an economic engine to light up Pennsylvania progress, roachholders and stakeholders alike need to know if the governor ever got frizzled.

Powerful lobbyists and cannabis executives are already grazing in the grass.

Spotlight PA reported in March that “the cannabis industry is spending money in Pennsylvania. Corporate executives for cannabis companies donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to lawmakers’ campaign funds in 2024. Benjamin Kovler, CEO and founder of Chicago-based cannabis retailer and cultivator Green Thumb Industries, contributed $45,000 to Pennsylvania’s highest-ranking lawmakers last year. The bulk of his contributions, $25,000, went to Shapiro.”

You’d think some hip mainstream newsperson would have already asked Shapiro about his history of personal recreational drug use. Too bad we live in a world of increasingly nonaggressive clerical news reported by timid stenographers.

Maybe the reporters are high.

On March 18 I sent another email to Lapowsky who again failed to respond. To test my blackball theory and set an outlaw journalism trap in the process, I asked to be included on the Governor’s Office emailing list that notifies journalists who cover state government of upcoming press conferences and appearances by the governor.

“Hi Stephen,” she quickly wrote back. “Happy to do so! I’ll get you added today.”

Far out. I wasn’t blackballed. But Lapowsky’s giddy response also verified that cannabis is, indeed, the forbidden fruit hanging in Shapiro’s political Garden of Eden by which he might be tempted but shies away.

On March 29 I rolled one last email.

“I’m close to publishing my story about whether Gov. Josh Shapiro ever used legal or illegal recreational cannabis,” I wrote to Lapowski. “You have still not acknowledged whether you asked Shapiro my question so I don’t know if Shapiro even knows I’m asking. Did you or anyone in the governor’s press office ask the governor if he ever got high for fun? If you or anyone in the governor’s press office did ask Shapiro if he ever got high, what was his answer? Shapiro is still pushing hard for recreational pot legalization. He’s still campaigning, maybe even to run for president. He still owes the people an answer. So do you.”

Lapowsky, a young lawyer who told me in our phone conversation she listened to me while growing up when I hosted for a decade a Northeastern Pennsylvania news radio show on WILK (where I interviewed then Pennsylvania Attorney General Shapiro), again ignored my questions.

Shapiro’s fear and loathsome secrecy makes him look like a dope. Is Shapiro a smoker, a joker, a midnight toker or just another space cowboy? Snooty elitist government cover-ups about drugs and other issues germane to our quality of life can easily destroy Shapiro’s political future. Deceit has fried better heads than his.

Let’s be blunt.

Weed gets us buzzed.

Truth sets us free.