Subj: UK: Tories press Mowlam over her 'drugs past'



Source: The Daily Telegraph (UK)



Pubdate: 16 January 2000







Tories Press Mowlam Over Her 'Drugs Past'

By Ian Cobain and David Cracknell



MO MOWLAM, the Cabinet minister now responsible for the Government's

anti-drugs campaign, was last night under pressure from the Conservative

Party to come clean about whether she has ever smoked cannabis.



The call was made after a former colleague of Dr Mowlam's at Iowa State

University in the early 1970s disclosed to The Telegraph that she saw her

handling drugs at a party. The claim will put pressure on the minister to

answer questions about her past - an embarrassment as she takes control of

the Government's war against drugs.



Dr Mowlam has refused to deny allegations that she used illegal drugs long

before she assumed responsibility for managing the Government's anti-drugs

strategy. Last night the minister could not be contacted for comment when

the Conservatives demanded she reveal whether she had ever smoked cannabis

or used any illegal substance.



Tories say the issue raises a question mark over Dr Mowlam's credibility as

the minister in charge of the anti-drugs drive. Andrew Lansley, a shadow

Cabinet Office minister, said: "Anyone who takes responsibility for leading

our policy against drugs should themselves be able to say with conviction

and from personal experience that one must just say no to drugs."



Dr Mowlam, 50, has admitted to having a "wild" time in her university days.

Claudia Beyer, a fellow postgraduate political student at Iowa, said last

night that she had once seen Dr Mowlam with a cannabis cigarette in her

hand at a party.



However, she could no longer recall whether Dr Mowlam smoked the joint or

was merely passing it from one person to another. She said: "I didn't see

it touch her lips. There was always time for partying at that time, but Mo

was very hard working. She always had the work done first."





Shortly after Dr Mowlam became Northern Ireland Secretary in 1997 one

newspaper claimed, in an apparently well-researched profile, that she

smoked cannabis while at Durham University in the late 1960s. It said:

"Life at Durham was liberated. She smoked joints - and unlike President

Clinton, Mo Mowlam inhaled."



Dr Mowlam has also dropped several heavy hints that she took illegal drugs

during a youth which was, by her own admission, at times outrageous. She

told one interviewer last year: "I suppose I was pretty wild. I was a child

of the 60s and did everything that went with that."



She told an interviewer from The Telegraph shortly before the last General

Election about her days as "a member of the rock'n'roll generation". But

when asked whether she was "one of the ones who smoke dope" she replied:

"No, not in this article today I'm not. No, no, no, not for Telegraph

readers."



Since being moved from Northern Ireland and given the job of making sure

that the Government's tough anti-drugs policies are implemented, Dr Mowlam

has been reluctant to disclose whether she has ever taken any herself. Dr

Mowlam will be a crucial member of the team responding to a report by the

Runciman Committee which is expected to call for the decriminalisation of

possession of cannabis and a radical overhaul of Britain's other drugs laws.



The committee, headed by Lady Runciman, a former member of the Advisory

Council on the Misuse of Drugs, is partly funded by the Home Office. The

Government is expected to adopt a cautious approach, however, as both Tony

Blair and Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, have taken a hardline stance -

even against soft drugs.



From the day that Labour took office it has promised to wage a "war against

drugs" and is soon to introduce mandatory drug testing for anyone arrested.

Meanwhile, the Medical Research Council is running a pounds 1 million study

into the possible benefits of cannabis by giving the drug to 2,000 patients

with spinal injuries, multiple sclerosis and incurable pain.