Subj: UK: Mo Mowlam admits she smoked cannabis



Date: Jan 17, 2000



Source: Scotsman, The  (UK)





Mo Mowlam admits she smoked cannabis

GARY DUNCAN



MO MOWLAM, the minister in charge of the government's anti-

drugs strategy, admitted yesterday that she had smoked

cannabis while a student.



The disclosure came after Claudia Beyer, a former colleague

of Dr Mowlam at Iowa State University in the 1970s, said she

had seen her with a cannabis cigarette at a party.



Dr Mowlam's admission, and the muted reaction it drew from

all sides of the political spectrum, will raise pressure

onthe government to consider a rethink of the law on "soft"

drugs.



Dr Mowlam, appearing on Sky News's Sunday with Adam Boulton,

was pressed over reports that Conservatives were calling on

her to come clean over past involvement with drugs.



In a reply in which she referred to Bill Clinton's notorious

response to similar questioning, the Cabinet Office minister

said: "I haven't made any secret of being a child of the

Sixties, never have. I wasn't part of the drugs culture, but

I have said in previous interviews this isn't a new news

story.



"I said I tried marijuana, didn't like it particularly and

unlike President Clinton I did inhale. But it wasn't part of

my life then and that's what happened."



She did not believe this made her unfit to continue in her

role spearheading the Government's fight against drugs, but

added that the decision lay with the Prime Minister.



Asked if she considered whether her "illegal" act meant she

should give up her Cabinet seat, Dr Mowlam said: "No,

because if it did Tony Blair would decide and I wouldn't

stay. Butit happened in America, it [cannabis] was something

that many people experimented with. If I had bought it, sold

it, used it frequently, it might have done - but I didn't."



She recognised there would now be calls for her to step down

from her government role, but pledged to continue alongside

the so-called drugs tsar, Keith Hellawell.



"The papers will be full tomorrow with claims that I am

unfit to look after the drugs policy. I will continue to

fight hard against the drugs that can kill people, like

heroin and cocaine.



"I will continue to say to young people, as I have done for

the last two months in the job, that taking drugs is not

within the law and is not a credible thing to do in your

life."



Ministers were backed by opposition parties and leading

anti-drugs campaigners in rejecting suggestions that Dr

Mowlam might have to resign or be sacked after her

confession that she had tried the drug when she was at

university.



An impending report from a Police Federation committee

partly funded by the Home Office, chaired by Lady Runciman

and including two chief constables, is expected to put the

government on the spot over the issue next month by

recommending that cannabis use should be decriminalised.



Coupled with Dr Mowlam's declaration, the report is likely

to create further difficulties for Jack Straw, the Home

Secretary, who has preferred to maintain a hard line on

drugs.



Yesterday, however, Mr Straw was at the forefront of

politicians commending his colleague for her honesty and

brushing aside any possibility of her leaving office as a

result.



Mr Straw told ITV's Dimbleby programme: "Good for Mo in

making this clear. One of her very great strengths is her

integrity and, if people have smoked cannabis in the past,

far better to say they have rather than trying to twist in

the wind."



In an indication of the demands likely to face the Home

Secretary and the Cabinet, Charles Kennedy, the Liberal

Democrat leader, yesterday wrote to Tony Blair calling for a

cross-party investigation of the law on drugs.



Mr Kennedy said he hoped that the Runciman report along with

Dr Mowlam's statement "might encourage politicians to enter

into more mature and open debate on this subject".



For the Conservatives, Andrew Lansley, the shadow Cabinet

Office minister, said: "I appreciate that it is important

for Mo Mowlam to answer questions about her past. But it

remains true that the important thing is not her past

experience but that she now continues - with us - to stress

to young people in particular the dangers of experimentation

with and use of drugs."



Dr Mowlam, who said that she had thought regular users of

cannabis "boring" in the 1960s, also dismissed suggestions

that she planned to dismiss Mr Hellawell, the anti-drugs co-

ordinator.



Mr Hellawell had earlier called for an end to the "witch-

hunt" of politicians accused of trying soft drugs before

they entered public life.