BRITAIN CONSERVATIVE PARTY RECONSIDERING ITS 'ZERO TOLERANCE' MARIJUANA POLICY

LONDON -- The head of Britain's opposition Conservative Party, William
Hague, said Monday the party will rethink its new "zero tolerance" policy
on marijuana use after police criticism and admissions by some party
leaders that they had once smoked the drug.

The Conservatives' justice spokeswoman Ann Widdecombe announced the new
policy at the party's annual conference last week, backing a mandatory $145
fine for a first offense of possessing marijuana.

But after the outcry over the announcement -- which aimed to underline the
party's law-and-order stance -- Hague signaled the policy would be
reconsidered.

"The proposals we have made are on the table, but they need further
consultation, discussion and debate," he said.

A top police organization, the Police Superintendents Association,
immediately called the policy unenforceable, and several senior party
members questioned the idea, admitting they had smoked marijuana in the past.

"It was quite hard to go through Cambridge University in the '70s without
doing it a few times," Francis Maude, the party's spokesman on foreign
affairs, said in an interview with the Mail on Sunday newspaper.