[Front page banner headline:]
DRUG ROW MINISTER IS THE HOME SECRETARY

[Sub headline:]
Scotsman Names Jack Straw As Father Of Boy Caught Selling Cannabis

The Cabinet Minister whose son is accused of drug dealing is Jack Straw,
the Home Secretary.

The Scotsman today takes the radical step to identify Mr Straw because it
believes the public interest in naming him now outweighs the need to
preserve his 17-year-old son's anonymity.

Yesterday, Mr Straw told two tabloid newspapers that he would like to be
named but his legal advisors had told him it was not possible. In fact this
is only the case under English law and there is no reason to stop Scottish
newspapers printing Mr Staw's identity. The Scotsman, however, is still
unable to name Mr Straw in its London editions.

Mr Straw has also been identified in newspapers abroad and on the Internet.

Last night The Scotsman's editor, Martin Clarke, said: "The Government's
handling of this matter has turned what was a fairly minor criminal issue
involving a 17-year-old youth into a major issue of principle about what
the public are allowed to know about their elected representatives.

"As far as we are concerned, Mr Straw's public wish that he could be named
removed the last obstacle to our telling our readers what every newspaper
executive, politician and broadcaster already knows.

"I think it is crucial that the next time the Home Secretary makes a
pronouncement about youth, crime or drugs then the public, as well as his
fellow politicians, can judge it in the light of what they know about his
personal experience of the issue."

The Scotsman is not subject to the same restrictions, and Mr Straw's name
has already appeared on the Internet and in newspapers abroad.

The Labour-supporting Mirror newspaper first accused an unnamed Cabinet
minister's son of selling Cannabis worth 10 UKP to one of its reporters on
Christmas Eve.

Mr Straw had already taken his son to a police station where he was
arrested and then released on bail.

The situation later descended into a farce, because journalists and
politicians at Westminster together with London's chattering classes,
quickly found out the minister was Mr Straw.

John Morris, the Attorney General, was granted an injunction by the high
court on Tuesday which prevented The Sun from naming Mr Straw.

Although the Sun successfully argued that the automatic anonymity granted
under the 1933 Children and Young Persons Act to anyone under 18 facing
criminal proceedings did not apply until the person had been charged, Mr
Justice Moses issued the injunction on the basis of the 1981 Contempt of
Court Act.

He said the act allowed him to protect the integrity of the course of
justice by protecting the identity of the 17-year-old.

However, Mr Straw was preparing to go public about the extra- ordinary
affair next week.

It is understood that the investigation by the Metropolitan police has
concluded that Mr Straw's son should either face a caution or no action at
all.

Legal experts said if the son was not prosecuted, he could be named.

The Crown Prosecution Service's response to the police report is expected
next week, possibly Monday.

The affair is potentially a huge embarrassment for the Government because
of its tough stance on drugs, and Mr Straw's responsibility for law and order.

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has refused to entertain calls for the
legalisation of soft drugs, including cannabis.

Mr Straw reiterated that view at the Labour party conference in October.

To heckles, he told delegates: "We will not decriminilise, legalise or
legitimise the use of drugs.

"At a time when we are trying to limit and control the use of alcohol and
nicotine, how can we possibly justify making it lawful to experiment with
other kinds of dangerous drugs.

"The only certain effects of decriminilisation would be to increase the use
of such drugs and the number of people addicted to them. And make the drugs
barons even richer."

Mr Straw has also made a virtue of repeating the Prime Minister's mantra
that the Government will be tough on crime, and tough on the causes of crime.

He told the party conference he wanted zero tolerance of crime and disorder
in Britain's neighbourhoods: "We said we would be tough on crime. And we are.

"We said we would be tough on the causes of crime. And we are.

"We said we would make Labour the party of law and order. And we did."

Mr Straw will pilot a Crime and Disorder Bill through Commons this year,
which includes fast track punishment for young offenders, together with
curfews to keep children of the streets.

In anonymous interviews to the Mirror and the Sun yesterday, Mr Straw spoke
of how he wanted to go public about the affair. He told the Mirror: "I want
to talk about this in public and reveal my identity but I have been told I
can't.

"Lawyers have said I haven't got any choice.

"That is obviously very frustrating because I am not the sort of person who
normally avoids confronting issues like this publicly."

He insisted he had not sought to influence Mr Morris in his decision to
seek an injunction against the Sun.

"I have asked that my son be treated no differently to anybody else."

Penalties for cannabis offences are not consistent across Britain, but 56
per cent of possession cases in 1995 were dealt with by caution.

Senior detectives spent seven days investigating Mr Straw's son before
sending a report to the Crown Prosecution Service on Wednesday.

The small amount of drugs involved - thought to be 1.92 grammes - and
conflicting versions given by witnesses about how the drugs came to be
bought by Dawn Alford, a Mirror reporter, are understood to be the main
factors behind the report's recommendations.

The report, to be considered by a lawyer from the south London branch of
the CPS, rather than by Dame Barbara Mills, the Director of Public
Prosecutions, prompted a warning from Scotland Against Drugs.

David Macauley, the pressure group's campaigns director, said: "Our
experience in Scotland has been that people want the police to come down
very hard on drug dealers.

"While as an organisation our view would be that decisions to prosecute are
a matter for the criminal justice system, many members of the public could
be critical of any decision that appears to be taking a soft approach
towards supplying drugs."

Meanwhile, Keith Hellawell, the so-called drugs tsar appointed by the
Government to co-ordinate its policies on drugs, ruled out legalisation of
cannabis in the next decade, saying it was a red herring.