MOWLAM TRIED CANNABIS AS A STUDENT IN US

MO MOWLAM yesterday became the most senior British politician to admit that
she had used cannabis while a student.

The Cabinet minister with responsibility for leading the anti-drugs drive
said that she had tried the drug while at Iowa University and had not
enjoyed the experience. She insisted that she remained the right person to
spearhead the Government's ten-year anti-drugs strategy as she had not
bought, sold or been a regular user of cannabis.

Her admission brought a call from Keith Hellawell, the head of the
Governmment's anti-drugs unit, for an end to witchhunts of politicians
accused of trying soft drugs before they entered public life.

With a generation of politicians arriving in high office who were at school
and university when soft drugs were widely available, their use of illegal
substances has become an issue for some sections of the media.

Tony Blair, a member of a pop band at Oxford, said that he had not taken
drugs, and Jack Straw, at Leeds University before the explosion of drugs
use, did not take them.

Last night Downing Street said that Dr Mowlam's job as Minister for the
Cabinet Office was safe and the Home Secretary praised her integrity.

Dr Mowlam said on Sky News: "I haven't made any secret of being a child of
the 60s. Never have. I wasn't part of the drugs culture, but I have said in
previous interviews this isn't a new news story.

"I said I tried marijuana, didn't like it particularly and unlike President
Clinton I did inhale. But it wasn't part of my life then and that's what
happened."

Dr Mowlam, who studied at Durham University and then at Iowa, added: "It
happened in America. It was something that many people experimented with".
She said that she did not think that her admission would make her unfit for
her role leading the official fight against drugs but said that the decision
lay with the Prime Minister. She has previously said that she enjoyed a
"wild" time while a student at Durham University in the 1960s and later as a
postgraduate politics student in America in the 1970s.

She made the admission after someone who was with her at Iowa went to a
newspaper and said that she saw her handling drugs at a party. Asked if she
considered whether her "illegal" act meant that she should give up her
Cabinet seat, Dr Mowlam said: "No, because if it did Tony Blair would decide
and I wouldn't stay. If I had bought it, sold it, used it frequently, it
might have done, but I didn't".

She said that many of those who regularly took drugs were boring and sat
around talking while she had preferred to do things.

Dr Mowlam said that she would continue to fight hard against drugs that can
kill people, such as heroin and cocaine. "I will continue to say to young
people, as I have done for the past two months in the job, that taking drugs
is not within the law and is not a credible thing to do in your life."

Dr Mowlam won support from Janet Betts, whose teenage daughter, Leah, died
after taking an Ecstasy tablet. She said that it would be "ridiculous" for
Dr Mowlam to be forced to step down. "All this shows is that Mo Mowlam was a
student and, like thousands of others in the 1960s and 70s, she experimented
with cannabis and in her case did not enjoy it.

"It is ridiculous to say that she should be sacked. Indeed, some would say
that it is a good thing she has first-hand experience of drugs if she is
heading the Government's drugs campaign."

Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, refused to call
for her resignation. "As long as she continues to stress and warn of the
dangers of experimentation with and use of drugs, I would not condemm her
for a past error," he said. Mr Straw, who is in charge of tackling drugs
offences, said: "Good for Mo in making this clear. One of her very great
strengths is her integrity, and if people have smoked cannabis in the past,
far better to say they have."

Mr Hellawell, whose anti-drugs unit is part of the Cabinet Office presided
over by Dr Mowlam, said that there had to be more openness about the use of
drugs. "If there continues to be a denial, or 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." He said he would be "very surprised" if a
proportion of the 659 MPs had not tried drugs.