MO MOWLAM ADMITS SHE SMOKED CANNABIS

MO MOWLAM, the minister in charge of the government's anti-drugs
strategy, admitted yesterday that she had smoked cannabis while a student.

The disclosure came after Claudia Beyer, a former colleague of Dr
Mowlam at Iowa State University in the 1970s, said she had seen her
with a cannabis cigarette at a party.

Dr Mowlam's admission, and the muted reaction it drew from all sides
of the political spectrum, will raise pressure onthe government to
consider a rethink of the law on "soft" drugs.

Dr Mowlam, appearing on Sky News's Sunday with Adam Boulton, was
pressed over reports that Conservatives were calling on her to come
clean over past involvement with drugs.

In a reply in which she referred to Bill Clinton's notorious response
to similar questioning, the Cabinet Office minister said: "I haven't
made any secret of being a child of the Sixties, 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."

She did not believe this made her unfit to continue in her role
spearheading the Government's fight against drugs, but added that the
decision lay with the Prime Minister.

Asked if she considered whether her "illegal" act meant she should
give up her Cabinet seat, Dr Mowlam said: "No, because if it did Tony
Blair would decide and I wouldn't stay. Butit happened in America, it
[cannabis] was something that many people experimented with. If I had
bought it, sold it, used it frequently, it might have done - but I
didn't."

She recognised there would now be calls for her to step down from her
government role, but pledged to continue alongside the so-called drugs
tsar, Keith Hellawell.

"The papers will be full tomorrow with claims that I am unfit to look
after the drugs policy. I will continue to fight hard against the
drugs that can kill people, like heroin and cocaine.

"I will continue to say to young people, as I have done for the last
two months in the job, that taking drugs is not within the law and is
not a credible thing to do in your life."

Ministers were backed by opposition parties and leading anti-drugs
campaigners in rejecting suggestions that Dr Mowlam might have to
resign or be sacked after her confession that she had tried the drug
when she was at university.

An impending report from a Police Federation committee partly funded
by the Home Office, chaired by Lady Runciman and including two chief
constables, is expected to put the government on the spot over the
issue next month by recommending that cannabis use should be
decriminalised.

Coupled with Dr Mowlam's declaration, the report is likely to create
further difficulties for Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, who has
preferred to maintain a hard line on drugs.

Yesterday, however, Mr Straw was at the forefront of politicians
commending his colleague for her honesty and brushing aside any
possibility of her leaving office as a result.

Mr Straw told ITV's Dimbleby programme: "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 rather
than trying to twist in the wind."

In an indication of the demands likely to face the Home Secretary and
the Cabinet, Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, yesterday
wrote to Tony Blair calling for a cross-party investigation of the law
on drugs.

Mr Kennedy said he hoped that the Runciman report along with Dr
Mowlam's statement "might encourage politicians to enter into more
mature and open debate on this subject".

For the Conservatives, Andrew Lansley, the shadow Cabinet Office
minister, said: "I appreciate that it is important for Mo Mowlam to
answer questions about her past. But it remains true that the
important thing is not her past experience but that she now continues
- - with us - to stress to young people in particular the dangers of
experimentation with and use of drugs."

Dr Mowlam, who said that she had thought regular users of cannabis
"boring" in the 1960s, also dismissed suggestions that she planned to
dismiss Mr Hellawell, the anti-drugs co-ordinator.

Mr Hellawell had earlier called for an end to the "witch-hunt" of
politicians accused of trying soft drugs before they entered public
life.