MOWLAM REIGNITES DRUGS DEBATE

Minister admits smoking cannabis in her 'wild' student days but insists she
will continue to spearhead government fight against drug use

Mo Mowlam, the cabinet office minister, who heads the government's
anti-drugs campaign, yesterday reignited the debate on the legalisation of
cannabis when she admitted inhaling marijuana as a student. Showing
characteristic honesty, Ms Mowlam immediately came clean about her "wild"
days as a student when she was questioned about Sunday newspaper claims that
she had smoked cannabis.

"I tried marijuana, didn't like it particularly and unlike President Clinton
I did inhale," Ms Mowlam, 50, told Sky television, recalling her days as a
postgraduate student at Iowa State university. "But it wasn't part of my
life then and that's what happened."

Ms Mowlam, who studied in America in the early 1970s after an undergraduate
degree at Durham university, said she did not believe her admission made her
unfit to head the government's hardline anti-drugs strategy.

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

Ms Mowlam, who described herself as a "child of the 60s", was forced to
speak about her experimentation with drugs after a former student at Iowa
recalled seeing her handling drugs at a party. Claudia Beyer, a fellow
postgraduate political student, said she saw Ms Mowlam holding a cannabis
cigarette, though she could not remember whether she had smoked it. "I
didn't see it touch her lips," Mrs Beyer told the Sunday Telegraph. "There
was always time for partying at that time but Mo was very hard-working. She
always had the work done first."

Ms Mowlam, one of the most candid members of the cabinet, who peppers
conversations in private with colourful language, has made no secret of her
wild days as a student at Durham in the late 1960s. She told one
interviewer: "I suppose I was pretty wild. I was a child of the 60s and did
everything that went with that."

Ms Mowlam, who is still angry at the way in which she was removed as
Northern Ireland secretary last year, is unlikely to suffer any political
damage from her admission.

Jack Straw, the home secretary who takes pride in his squeaky clean
behaviour as a student at Leeds in the early 1960s, praised his cabinet
colleague for being honest. "Good for Mo in making this clear," he told
Jonathan Dimbleby on ITV. "One of her very great strengths is her integrity
and if people have smoked cannabis in the past, far better to say they
have."

The government's drugs tsar, Keith Hellawell, also supported Ms Mowlam. He
told GMTV: "I think we've got to stop this idea of witch-hunts and pointing
the finger. The debate needs to be at a much higher level than that. 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. There needs to be more
of the openness."

The anti-drugs campaigner Janet Betts, whose teenage daughter Leah died
after taking an ecstasy tablet, said: "All this shows is that Mo Mowlam was
a student and, like thousands of others in the 60s and 70s, she experimented
with cannabis and in her case did not enjoy it."

Even the Tories made little attempt to capitalise on Ms Mowlam's admission.
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."

The government, however, is unlikely to welcome the reopening of the debate
on the legalisation of soft drugs. Ministers, who stamped on Clare Short
when she called for a debate on the issue, have come under fire from civil
rights groups and the Liberal Democrats for refusing to consider relaxing
the law.

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, seized on Ms Mowlam's remarks
to reiterate his demand for a royal commission to look at drugs policy.
"Having written personally to both Mr Hague and Mr Blair at the end of last
week calling on them to enter into a debate on this very issue, I hope that
Mo Mowlam's department and the revelations of this weekend will encourage a
more open and mature debate into this crucial area of British society," Mr
Kennedy said.

Opponents of the government will receive a boost later this month when the
Police Foundation, whose president is the Prince of Wales, publishes a
report saying that the possession of cannabis should no longer be punishable
by jail. The report is also expected to call for a relaxation of the ban on
the use of cannabis for medical purposes.