Pubdate: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 Source: Guardian Weekly, The (UK) Section: Page: 11 Copyright: Guardian Publications 2000 Contact: 75 Farringdon Road London U.K EC1M 3HQ Fax: 44-171-242-0985 Website: http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/GWeekly/ Author: Nicholas Watt, Political Correspondent ANTI-DRUGS MINISTER MOWLAM ADMITS SMOKING MARIJUANA Mo Mowlam, the Cabinet Office minister who heads the Government's anti-drugs campaign, reignited the debate on legalising cannabis when she admitted that she once smoked marijuana as a student. She came clean when she was questioned about newspaper claims that she had smoked the drug during her days as a postgraduate student at Iowa state university. "I tried marijuana, didn't like it particularly, and - unlike President Clinton - I did inhale," she said. "But it wasn't part of my life then, and that's what happened." Ms Mowlam, 50, who studied in the United States in the early 1970s after earning a degree at Durham university, said she did not believe that her admission made her unfit to head the Government's hardline anti-drugs strategy. "I will continue to fight hard against the drugs that can kill people, like heroin and cocaine," she said. "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." Ms Mowlam, who described herself as a "child of the 60s", was forced to speak about her experimentation with drugs after a former student at Iowa recalled seeing her handling drugs at a party. The former Northern Ireland Secretary has made no secret of her wild days as a student at Durham in the late 1960s. She told one interviewer: "I suppose I was pretty wild. I was a child of the 60s and did everything that went with that." She is unlikely to suffer any political damage from her admission. Jack Straw, the Home Secretary who takes pride in his squeaky-clean behaviour as a student at Leeds in the early 60s (and who even took his own son to the police after he was accused of supplying cannabis), praised her for being honest. "Good for Mo in making this clear," he said. "One of her very great strengths is her integrity, and if people have smoked cannabis in the past, far better to say they have." The Government's drugs tsar, Keith Hellawell, said: "I think we've got to stop this idea of witch hunts and pointing the finger. The debate needs to be at a much higher level than that. If there continues to be a label on people - you know, 'you are a bad person if you ever took drugs' - then we'll never move forward." Even the Tories made little attempt to capitalise on the admission. Andrew Lansley, a shadow 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." - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk