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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Cameron faces questions over drug use
Michael White The Guardian
Tuesday 11 Oct 2005 David Cameron, the new favourite to win the Conservative leadership, will undergo a severe test of his political toughness tomorrow when he faces backbench Tory MPs keen to learn the limits of his youthful indiscretions. The stakes were raised yesterday when a discussion of drugs and crime at Question Time on the first day of the new parliamentary season prompted Labour heckles about "Cannabis Cameron" and other witticisms. The shadow education spokesman triggered alarm bells among wavering colleagues at the weekend when he brushed aside a series of questions about the drugs he did or didn't take at Oxford University 20 years ago. At his party's Blackpool conference, where a fluent platform performance propelled him to the front of the pack, Mr Cameron deflected questions about student drug-taking. "I am a politician ... I had a normal university experience," said the MP for Witney, who went from Eton to Christ Church College. On ITV he later said: "I did lots of things before I came into politics I shouldn't have done. We all did." By the time he appeared on the BBC's Sunday AM he was complaining about having "some sort of McCarthyite hearings", for all MPs. By this time three of his rivals, David Davis, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Dr Liam Fox, had denied experimenting with drugs. Kenneth Clarke, Mr Cameron's rival for the centre-left vote, had refused to answer such questions on principle. But he is famous for other addictive lifestyle choices, cigars and beer, so a drug habit is deemed by most colleagues to be both unlikely and unnecessary. Tomorrow the candidates face a private husting of Tory MPs, whose 198 votes will decide who gets into the final round on December 5. Rival camps predict that fellow politicians will not be content to accept the kind of "politician's answers" acceptable on TV. Some MPs believe Mr Cameron should have been honest, as half the shadow cabinet were when asked about cannabis in 2002. They fear a lack of frankness means that the MP or some of his personal or political friends in the so-called Notting Hill set have more to hide, either about drugs or other things "we all did". George Bush has faced persistent gossip about his wild youth, involving hard drugs as well as drink. Bill Clinton famously "smoked but did not inhale", cannabis. After the Kate Moss cocaine scandal the tabloids are dangerously obsessed with the issue. As with Douglas Hurd's Etonian candidacy in 1990 when John Major played the class card, Mr Cameron's rivals are keen to contrast the casual recreational attitude towards drugs among a privileged elite with its dire consequences on working class estates.
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