Pubdate: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 Source: Guardian, The (UK) Copyright: 2005 Guardian Newspapers Limited Contact: http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175 Author: Marina Hyde David Cameron's refusal to answer the drug question may reap him the same benefits as Tony Blair Has he taken drugs? No idea. But do you know where I could get some as a matter of urgency? So tedious are the attempts to needle David Cameron into coughing up to former substance use that I yearn to be heavily medicated each time the question arises, and, in order to speed the demise of this latest contribution to the alleged debate on narcotics, feel duty bound to remind inquisitors that God's own messenger, George Bush, was exposed earlier this year as a former marijuana user, and was still in a job last time anyone dared look. Just prior to his accession to the presidency, a former aide of his father's elicited Dubya's admission on a tape, yet when he made its contents known, barely an eyelid was batted. This is because - as Cameron and everyone else flogging this non-story is doubtless aware - there are two types of marijuana. There is the type used by convicted felons, languishing in Texas jails for 25 years under the three strikes rule after being caught with a few dollars' worth of it in their sock. And there is the youthful experiment type. Similarly, when Tony Blair held his Cool Britannia party and giggled matily with Noel Gallagher about the divergent means they had used to stay awake on the night of Labour's 1997 election victory, you had to remember that the reason he could welcome a self-confessed coke-lover to No 10 was that Noel used a whole other kind of drugs to the ones the PM had declared one of his fatuous wars on. For the sake of adult argument, we'll assume that if David Cameron hadn't tried some sort of recreational drug in his time, he'd be falling over himself to say so at this particular juncture. His only challenge, in the bewildering new moral universe we have inhabited since the Kate Moss palaver, is implying which of the above types of marijuana or anything else he took. One suspects it was the youthful experiment sort, but perhaps it is the fear that former friends' recollections may vary that causes him to be so determinedly coy on the matter. Still, with any luck, Cameron's Oxford will be much like the 60s - if you can remember it, dude, you totally weren't there! - and his coquettish refusal to commit to an answer will reap him the same benefits as it has Tony Blair. I would, however, be outraged if either man became the face of Burberry. If the past few weeks have taught us anything, it is that while the use of recreational drugs at some point in one's life would not disbar one from becoming the leader of the free world, or a future prime minister, or a senior newspaper journalist, it would be beyond unseemly to allow such fallen creatures to advertise plaid-lined macs. In fact, so addicted have some newspaper editors become to stories about drugs that the sheer weight of them appears to have caused some kind of tear in the celebrity-politics continuum. Thus it is that Met chief Sir Ian Blair chose to break his long and faintly awkward silence following disturbing revelations about the shooting of the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes with a TV interview in which he attempted to get heavy over a model blowing a few lines off the back of a CD case. In light of this, it somehow seems perfectly normal that the lone voices of sanity at present are Lord Ashcroft and Robbie Williams. The former Tory party treasurer used a vanity-published memoir of his battle with the Times to reveal that three of that newspaper's journalists had snorted cocaine in front of him at a party conference, while the Angels singer announced in exasperation in a press conference on Friday that he had taken drugs with some of the very newspaper hacks currently sticking it to Kate Moss. Yet on it goes. We seem set to endure further pointless questioning of David Cameron on this business until either he loses his rag and headbutts an interviewer, or the aforementioned tear causes public life finally to collapse in on itself with a story that David Blunkett's dog has been dealing crack in Annabel's. If the pretence that this is a crucial line of inquiry is to be maintained, perhaps a similar effort should be expended determining which other potentially life-wrecking criminal offences may have been committed by Cameron and gone undetected. Has he ever conversed on his mobile telephone while driving? Has he broken the speed limit? Has he paid a plumber in cash? Has he run with scissors? Enquiring minds want to know. In the meantime, we need hardly ask where next for whichever of his squeaky-clean leadership rivals fail to land the job. There's a vacancy to front the Chanel campaign, and they'd all be perfect. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt Elrod