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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Portillo supports cannabis campaign Patrick Hennessy and Adam Blenford This Is London Tuesday 10 Jul 2001 Michael Portillo has electrified the Tory leadership contest by saying that he believes a "strong enough case" has been made for legalising cannabis. Only hours before MPs began voting in a ballot he is expected to top, the shadow Chancellor told reporters that Conservatives had to be "open to new thinking" and more in favour of "personal freedom" than Labour. Mr Portillo made his comments, which go much further than his previous insistence that he had an open mind on the issue, in an interview in Lady Thatcher's former constituency of Finchley last night. He said: "People are clearly debating this question about whether marijuana should be legalised. I think a strong enough case has been made for legalisation on the basis that marijuana is a drug that can be compared with alcohol and tobacco - and on the basis that kids are buying these things, and buying them from people who are involved in a very dangerous drugs trade, simultaneously. "We have to look at this and I would propose that the party sit down, take the evidence and reach a conclusion. And I hope that we will be seen, in doing that, as being a party that is open to new thinking." Only last week on the BBC's Question Time, Mr Portillo repeatedly refused to say whether he believed cannabis should be legalised, claiming only that the issue was "finely balanced". His comments in Finchley go much further - and carry the risk of being very unpopular among Tory activists who will have the final vote on who succeeds William Hague as party leader. Mr Portillo's cannabis remarks muddied the waters around his candidacy at the same time as he was facing claims that he failed to declare around £20,000 from speaking engagements while he was employment secretary in John Major's government in the mid-1990s. He launched a strong fightback against the allegations, in The Guardian, claiming they were a Left-wing "smear" designed to damage him as MPs began voting on the leadership. Mr Portillo admitted accepting the money for speaking to private dinners - mostly arranged by businesses. However, he insisted the money had been paid to his constituency association and that he had kept none of it. The shadow Chancellor claims he complied fully with the Commons rules on declaring such payments in the Register of Members' Interests, which were less stringent at the time than they are now. However, when he accepted the money, he was also under obligation to the ministerial code which ruled that any member of the government should not accept gifts or hospitality which "would or might appear to place him under an obligation".
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