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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Minister admits to smoking cannabis
The BBC
Thursday 08 Feb 2001 A minister who has responsibility for drugs policy has admitted to smoking cannabis when he was a teenager. The Home Office Minister Charles Clarke says he tried it twice in his teens while on holiday in the United States. Speaking on the BBC's Question Time, Mr Clarke said he didn't enjoy the experience. He added that he never even smoked cigarettes before. Mr Clarke said that while he had not been harmed by the experience cannabis was a 'deeply harmful drug'. He said if he had consumed it in large quantities over a significant period of time, he would have been harmed by it. The minister told the programme that drug consumption was extremely damaging to health, and defended the Government's opposition to the legalisation of cannabis. But he said he was in favour of changing the law to allow cannabis to be taken for medicinal purposes for sufferers of multiple schlerosis if it was properly vetted. Mr Clarke said he had publically admitted taking the drugs before he entered the Commons. He said he had spoken about it during a rally in his Norwich South constituency at the 1997 election where he was being opposed by the convicted drugs dealer Howard Marks, who was standing as an independent candidate. The government came under fierce criticism earlier this week when ministers rejected the recommendations of a landmark report which called for certain soft drugs to be downgraded.
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