Subj: UK: Children of Sixties reluctant to make the cannabis confession



Date: 17 Jan, 2000



Source: Daily Telegraph, UK







Children of Sixties reluctant to make the cannabis confession

By Sandra Laville





WHILE Mo Mowlam was inhaling, the rest of her Government colleagues, it

seems, were living somewhat sheltered lives in the decade of sex and

drugs and rock'n'roll.



Despite most of them being children of the Sixties, no one else in the

Cabinet has admitted smoking cannabis as a student. Charles Clarke, home

office minister, when asked before the general election, revealed that

he once smoked cannabis joints. "I replied I had taken it a couple of

times in my late teens," he said. "I think it is important to tell the

truth.'



His boss Jack Straw, despite being a long-haired student radical,

apparently never touched the stuff.



Jonathan Aitken admitted he had taken LSD, although he said it was for

an article in the Evening Standard. And Estelle Morris, the schools

minister, suggested that head teachers might be well advised not to

exclude pupils for smoking cannabis.



But no senior British politician, before Ms Mowlam, has admitted

indulging in their youth, something even Keith Hellawell, the drugs

tsar, finds hard to believe. Mr Hellawell said yesterday that he would

be "very surprised" if a proportion of the 659 MPs in the House of

Commons had not tried drugs.



President Clinton famously admitted smoking a joint but not inhaling.

And George W Bush, the governor of Texas, has denied using cocaine in

the past 25 years but refuses to say anything about the years before

that. When pushed on the subject he admitted that he had "made mistakes

in the past" but would not engage in the "politics of personal

destruction" by talking further about the issue.



The Labour MPs Claire Short, Tony Banks and Paul Flynn have risked the

ire of Number 10 for suggesting that the issue of legalisation of

cannabis should be examined. They deny they have ever smoked marijuana

themselves.



But with new figures showing that up to 40 per cent of Britons aged 15

and 16 have tried cannabis, outside politics the calls for an open

debate about the drug are increasing. Richard Holloway, the Bishop of

Edinburgh, weighed into the debate when he admitted he had tried the

drug and called for the law to be reviewed.



In 1967 a controversial "legalise pot" advertisement appeared in The

Times, with a list of signatories including the former Labour MP Brian

Walden, the photographer David Bailey and the Beatles. A repeat 25 years

later was signed by the Labour MP Tony Banks, the broadcaster Ludovic

Kennedy, and the musician Brian Eno.



Sir Paul McCartney spoke out more recently when he called for the

decriminalisation of the Class B drug. "I think a liberal attitude is

not a bad thing," he said. "So I favour a decriminalisation of it. If my

kids ever ask me, 'What about it?' I would say, 'There is this bunch of

drugs. This is probably the least harmful. There is a hit list. You can

go up it to heroin but it's not easy, in fact impossible for some

people'.



"But I always say to them, 'That's the facts of life, but if you ask my

advice, don't do any'."



Richard Branson, the Virgin founder who signed a petition calling for

the legalisation of cannabis, said he would be prepared to sell the drug

in his stores if it was legalised. He said his company would not want to

get involved in selling ordinary cigarettes but he would not rule out

promoting cannabis if the law allowed it because it was probably less

harmful than tobacco.



The millionaire businessman said that to encourage young people to smoke

would be immoral. But although he was not advocating the sale of

cannabis if it was legalised, he added: "If a cigarette company started

selling it at too high a price, I'm sure we'd be in there."



While businessmen eye the main chance and even church leaders talk

openly about their experiences, the Oasis star Noel Gallagher, who once

said taking drugs was as normal as making a cup of tea, has cleaned up

his act. Now in his mid-thirties with a baby on the way, he says he has

stopped taking drugs. "Now if people are round my house and whacking

them out, I don't feel anything any more," he said.