A FATHER WRITES NO TO DRUGS, YES TO HYPOCRISY

'HAVE you ever taken drugs, Dad?" my 12-year-old asked me, as he looked up
from the newspaper on Monday.

"You must never take drugs," I told him. "They're very dangerous."

"I know. But have you ever taken drugs, Dad?"

I thought quickly. "Well, I've taken aspirin. And aspirin is a drug," I
said, congratulating myself on having dodged the question. But the boy was
not to be fooled that easily.

"Huh!" he said, rolling his eyes. "All adults are hypocrites." And he went
back to reading the newspaper.

The story he was reading, of course, was about Mo Mowlam's confession that
she had experimented with drugs in her youth. (Why do people always say
"experimented" when they are talking about drugs, as if their interest was
purely high-minded and scientific? Nobody ever says: "I experimented a bit
with caviar when I was young, but I didn't take to it.")

I suppose that there is a hint of hypocrisy about Mo Mowlam's position.
There she is, in charge of the Government's anti-drugs strategy, preaching
about the danger and folly of taking illegal drugs. But she did not think to
tell us, before the confession was forced out of her, that she had taken
them herself, with no obvious ill effects. (I don't think that we can blame
her general all-round ghastliness on cannabis.)

I admit that my 12-year-old has a point, too, when he accuses me of
hypocrisy. Here I am, telling him never to touch the stuff, while I have
smoked it myself and see very little harm in it.

It is often said that it was impossible to go to a university in the 1960s
or 1970s, as I did, without having at least a few puffs of cannabis or a
line or two of cocaine. But that is quite untrue. I am sure a great many of
my contemporaries went through Cambridge in the mid-1970s without having
anything at all to do with drugs. But I was not one of them, and nor were
most of my friends.

I can put my hand on my heart and say that I tried cannabis only very
infrequently, and that I have never actually bought it - although my friends
whose cannabis I smoked will say that this is itself a pretty shameful
confession.

But it was not so much meanness as cowardice that stopped me from buying
drugs to offer around. I hated the idea of drug dealers and I did not want
to get mixed up with them in any way. I was also frightened of getting
caught. But what terrified me most of all was the thought that if I got into
the way of buying drugs, I would almost certainly get hooked.

I had no fear of cannabis, and I still do not believe that it does any real
damage - although in my experience, people who smoke an awful lot of it tend
to become very stupid and boring when they reach their mid-thirties. But I
was sure that if I did find a dealer, he would soon be offering me something
stronger - and I know enough about myself to realise that I am one of
nature's addicts. Far safer, I felt, to go on enjoying the odd joint at the
expense of my friends.

So here I stand, a hypocrite, telling my sons to do as I say, and not as I
have done. But then, for many of us, parenthood is one long exercise in
hypocrisy and I do not see much wrong with that.

I would be furious if any of my boys took up smoking. It is a disgusting
habit and extremely unhealthy, I tell them, with a cigarette hanging out of
my mouth. And if I catch them drinking alcohol - except in extreme
moderation and under my strict supervision - there will be hell to pay, I
say. And then I take another long slurp of whisky.

Hypocrisy in general, the homage that vice pays to virtue, is much to be
encouraged. I saw nothing very wrong with all those Tory ministers in the
last government preaching the joys of family life as they hopped in and out
of their mistresses' beds. It would have been far worse if they had gone
around telling the whole world that adultery was just great, and that
everyone should try it.

In the same way, I would not mind a bit if Mo Mowlam took up heroin
tomorrow, as long as she went on preaching the message that drugs are
dangerous, and that nobody should get involved with them.

I have one final message for my sons: if you want to make the best of your
lives, you should take a look at your father. And whatever it is that he
happens to be doing, don't.