MO: I DID INHALE

Boss of drug war admits cannabis use as student

MO MOWLAM, head of the Government's drugs war, has admitted smoking
cannabis.

And unlike Bill Clinton, she did inhale.

The Cabinet Office Minister's revelation that she dabbled with
marijuana as a student will embarrass Tony Blair, who put her in
charge of the fight against drugs.

She will play a key role in ruling on recommendations by the Runciman
Committee, which is expected to call for cannabis to be
decriminalised. Blair is known to be dead against such a move.

Mowlam has described her youth as "pretty wild" but has always
side-stepped detailed questions about it.

However, she told an interviewer yesterday: "I tried marijuana and did
not particularly like it.

"Unlike President Clinton, I did inhale, but it was not part of my
life. That's what happened."

Mowlam, who says she found 60s pot-smokers "boring", experimented with
the drug while a postgraduate politics student at Iowa University in
the USA in the 70s.

A fellow-student told at the weekend of seeing the former Ulster
Secretary with a joint at a party.

Mowlam denied her "illegal" act meant she should resign from the
Cabinet, and said it had not damaged her credibility as a force
against drugs.

She 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. It happened in America, it was something many people
experimented with."

But she admitted: "The papers will be full tomorrow with claims that I
am unfit to look after the drugs policy."

In the interview, Mowlam hinted that a crackdown on cannabis use was
low on her list of priorities.

She said: "I will continue to fight hard against the drugs that can
kill people, like heroin and cocaine."

A Downing Street spokes-man backed Mowlam, saying Blair "firmly
believes she is the right person for the job".

And her Tory shadow Andrew Lansley - perhaps mindful of her popularity
with the public - refused to call for her resignation.

Scotland's drugs policy is still controlled from Westminster, although
the Scottish Parliament can debate the issues.

A third of MSPs who answered a recent survey called for cannabis to be
decriminalised, and opinion polls suggest more than half of Scotland's
young people want it made legal.

The many opponents of legalisation claim it is dangerous and a gateway
to harder drugs. An estimated five million Britons use cannabis regularly.