REVELATIONS ALTER PLAN FOR NEW DRUG POLICY IN BRITAIN

LONDON -- The head of Britain's opposition Conservative Party, William
Hague, said Monday that his party will rethink its new hard-line policy on
first-time drug offenders after seven of his party leaders said they had
smoked marijuana in their youth.

The proposal, put forward at the party's annual conference last week,
called for $150 minimum fines and criminal records for people caught with
small amounts of soft drugs in their possession or even in their
bloodstreams. It was the centerpiece of a "zero tolerance" law-and-order
approach that the party is adopting as campaign strategy in the election
expected next spring.

The plan was immediately attacked by police officials and social
organizations as draconian and unworkable and by senior figures in the
party, who feared it would cost them votes from young people and their parents.

"The proposals we have made are on the table, but they need further
consultation, discussion and debate," Hague said, not entirely abandoning
the plan. "We realize there are concerns about some of the proposals we
have made, and so we are going to go to the police, to the medical
profession, to drug rehabilitation workers, to teachers and to parents
around the country and have this honest debate about drugs."

The uproar exposed a dispute between authoritarian and libertarian branches
of the party that appears to be replacing the issue of Britain's
relationship with Europe as the party's main source of internal discord.

The Mail on Sunday asked the 22 members of the shadow Cabinet -- the men
and women who are the out-of-power party's counterparts to government
Cabinet officers -- whether they had ever taken drugs. Eleven, including
Hague, said they had not. Two declined comment, and two could not be
reached. But seven admitted they had.

The confessions were bashful ones, with the acts attributed to college-age
curiosity and youthful interest in experimenting. "It was quite hard to go
through Cambridge in the 1970s without doing it a few times," said Francis
Maude, the shadow foreign secretary. "Some friends put dope in my pipe,"
said Oliver Letwin, whose responsibility is the treasury. David Willetts,
the opposition's social security minister, said, "I was once offered
cannabis at university; I had two puffs; I didn't like it."

Asked if he had confidence in the seven men, Hague said: "Of course. Any
Cabinet or shadow Cabinet that faces up to these problems is going to
include people who 20 or 30 years ago had some experience of drugs. It
would be extraordinary if it didn't."

This article includes material from The Associated Press.