CHILDREN OF SIXTIES RELUCTANT TO MAKE THE CANNABIS CONFESSION

While Mo Mowlam was inhaling, the rest of her Government colleagues,
it seems, were living somewhat sheltered lives in the decade of sex
and drugs and rock'n'roll.

Despite most of them being children of the Sixties, no one else in the
Cabinet has admitted smoking cannabis as a student. Charles Clarke,
home office minister, when asked before the general election, revealed
that he once smoked cannabis joints. "I replied I had taken it a
couple of times in my late teens," he said. "I think it is important
to tell the truth.'

His boss Jack Straw, despite being a long-haired student radical,
apparently never touched the stuff.

Jonathan Aitken admitted he had taken LSD, although he said it was for
an article in the Evening Standard. And Estelle Morris, the schools
minister, suggested that head teachers might be well advised not to
exclude pupils for smoking cannabis.

But no senior British politician, before Ms Mowlam, has admitted
indulging in their youth, something even Keith Hellawell, the drugs
tsar, finds hard to believe. Mr Hellawell said yesterday that he would
be "very surprised" if a proportion of the 659 MPs in the House of
Commons had not tried drugs.

President Clinton famously admitted smoking a joint but not inhaling.
And George W Bush, the governor of Texas, has denied using cocaine in
the past 25 years but refuses to say anything about the years before
that. When pushed on the subject he admitted that he had "made
mistakes in the past" but would not engage in the "politics of
personal destruction" by talking further about the issue.

The Labour MPs Claire Short, Tony Banks and Paul Flynn have risked the
ire of Number 10 for suggesting that the issue of legalisation of
cannabis should be examined. They deny they have ever smoked marijuana
themselves.

But with new figures showing that up to 40 per cent of Britons aged 15
and 16 have tried cannabis, outside politics the calls for an open
debate about the drug are increasing. Richard Holloway, the Bishop of
Edinburgh, weighed into the debate when he admitted he had tried the
drug and called for the law to be reviewed.

In 1967 a controversial "legalise pot" advertisement appeared in The
Times, with a list of signatories including the former Labour MP Brian
Walden, the photographer David Bailey and the Beatles. A repeat 25
years later was signed by the Labour MP Tony Banks, the broadcaster
Ludovic Kennedy, and the musician Brian Eno.

Sir Paul McCartney spoke out more recently when he called for the
decriminalisation of the Class B drug. "I think a liberal attitude is
not a bad thing," he said. "So I favour a decriminalisation of it. If
my kids ever ask me, 'What about it?' I would say, 'There is this
bunch of drugs. This is probably the least harmful. There is a hit
list. You can go up it to heroin but it's not easy, in fact impossible
for some people'.

"But I always say to them, 'That's the facts of life, but if you ask
my advice, don't do any'."

Richard Branson, the Virgin founder who signed a petition calling for
the legalisation of cannabis, said he would be prepared to sell the
drug in his stores if it was legalised. He said his company would not
want to get involved in selling ordinary cigarettes but he would not
rule out promoting cannabis if the law allowed it because it was
probably less harmful than tobacco.

The millionaire businessman said that to encourage young people to
smoke would be immoral. But although he was not advocating the sale of
cannabis if it was legalised, he added: "If a cigarette company
started selling it at too high a price, I'm sure we'd be in there."

While businessmen eye the main chance and even church leaders talk
openly about their experiences, the Oasis star Noel Gallagher, who
once said taking drugs was as normal as making a cup of tea, has
cleaned up his act. Now in his mid-thirties with a baby on the way, he
says he has stopped taking drugs. "Now if people are round my house
and whacking them out, I don't feel anything any more," he said.