SERIES: DRUGS UNCOVERED: COMING CLEAN

Admission of past dabbling in drugs has rarely harmed a politician's
career, but why do so few admit to having enjoyed their youthful
experiences, asks Rafael Behr

There are generally two reasons why people take drugs. Either they are
addicted, in which case they are seeking to avert the negative
consequences of withdrawal, or they are not addicted, in which case
they are seeking the positive effects of intoxication. As far as we
know, none of the senior politicians who have confessed to, or been
accused of, drug use falls into the first category.

On the Labour benches, Alistair Darling, Jacqui Smith, Andy Burnham,
Ruth Kelly, Hazel Blears, Harriet Harman, John Hutton, Patricia
Hewitt, Yvette Cooper, John Denham, Charles Clarke and Tony McNulty
have all admitted smoking cannabis at some point in their lives. Six
of them are serving members of the cabinet. On the Conservative
benches, there have been allegations, unproven, that both David
Cameron and George Osborne have taken cocaine. On the subject, David
Cameron said: 'All I have said about my past... is that what is
private in the past should remain private.' Tim Yeo and David Willetts
have said they tried cannabis. The Tories' most powerful elected
official, Boris Johnson, has admitted trying cocaine and smoking
'quite a few spliffs' at university.

But there is no evidence that any of them has had their will crippled
and their judgment warped by the desperate need to satisfy an illegal
appetite. Perhaps that is why none of the politicians who has
confessed has suffered as a result. Since 27 per cent of British
adults have taken some form of illegal drug it would make sense for
the public to be relaxed about aspiring leaders flirting with
narcotics. Youthful experimentation is not a sacking offence.

The only politician in recent years whose career has been damaged by
substance abuse is Charles Kennedy. He was ousted as leader of the
Liberal Democrats in January 2006 because of an alcohol addiction.
Booze is not illegal. Kennedy was punished for his habit because it
was impairing his performance and forcing his colleagues into serial
dishonesty. He appeared at an election campaign press conference in
2005 dishevelled and incoherent, for example. Covering up the problem
was a liability for the party.

If any politician was exposed as a chronic junkie, his or her career
would be over immediately. The fact of addiction would be a
disqualification from competent government. But that is a matter of
capability, not morality. So is the fact that drugs are illegal the
only reason politicians can't take them, or rather, be seen to be
taking them?

Since the Sixties, recreational drug use has become progressively more
common, so we can assume that successive cohorts of politicians will
include more occasional drug takers. It might reasonably follow that
drug laws would become progressively more liberal. Cannabis was indeed
downgraded from a class B to class C drug in 2004 - the first
significant relaxation since the classification system was first
introduced in 1971.

But cannabis is an exceptional case. The change in law followed a long
period in which pot smoking had become normalised, with enthusiastic
depictions of its effects in film, on TV and in pop music. The
marijuana leaf had become a fashion symbol. Politicians only broke
cover once it was clear that there was little danger of public outrage
if they admitted having used the drug. Ministers did not have to
defend reclassification with reference to their empirical experience;
they were dealing with a cultural fait accompli. Sure enough, as
evidence emerges that modern 'skunk' strains of cannabis are much
stronger than the old weed feted in popular culture,
re-reclassifaction to Class B is on the agenda.

But what about really 'hard' drugs? Of those Britons who have dabbled
at all, more than a third have taken ecstasy and cocaine. If a
substantial minority of voters have flirted with class A substances
and come away unscathed, surely they would forgive similar risk-taking
among their putative leaders. That certainly seems to be the case
across the Atlantic. In his first volume of political memoirs, Barack
Obama admits that he and his friends did 'a little blow [cocaine],
when we could afford it'. And Americans are generally assumed to
moralise more in their judgment of politicians than Britons.

If David Cameron fails to become our next Prime Minister it is
unlikely to be unsubstantiated rumours of drug use in his youth that
are to blame. If anything, the whiff of subversion in his past served
an accidental but expedient function when he first became Tory leader.
The Conservative party at that time was routinely caricatured as
dislocated from the cultural mainstream and entrenched in bitter
reaction against modern Britain. Cameron stated that his primary task
was to 'detoxify the brand'. Officially, that meant making speeches
about poverty and being photographed on eco-missions to the Arctic.
But a cocaine non-scandal probably did no harm. The suggestion of
contact with drugs culture at least opened up the possibility that the
Tory leadership, in its youth, had lived on the same planet as the
rest of us. That was a substantial advance for the party in 2005.

Of course, the idea that politicians should, by their social and
cultural experiences, resemble the people they govern has always been
a fiction. Being 'out of touch' is an absurd charge to level against
people who, by definition, occupy a rarefied stratum of an atomised
society. With which particular demographic segment are they supposed
to be 'in touch'?

It is a particularly ridiculous aspiration today, when anyone who
enjoys a high public profile can expect details of their private life
to be trawled for evidence of misjudgment, hypocrisy or ethical turpitude.

For dilettantes who go into politics after a career in some other
field that leaves hostages to fortune. But for a generation of
professional, ambitious young hacks who manoeuvre their way from
campus soap boxes, via think-tanks and a stint in party research
departments, to winnable seats and positions on the front benches,
safety has to come first. Presumably, as the spliffs are going round
in undergraduate digs these days, there are people who hesitate to
partake just in case they end up pictured on Facebook somewhere, with
a future career-wrecking reefer in their hand.

We only pretend to want politicians to be ordinary people. In reality,
we still think that the responsibilities they hold make it desirable
(if optimistic) that in matters of self-discipline and sobriety, they
are extraordinary.

So it is dangerous for politicians to admit to drug use, even when it
has become less taboo in mainstream culture. They are not celebrities,
even when subject to the same kind of media scrutiny. It is just about
OK for Kate Moss to be pictured snorting lines of cocaine in a
recording studio, because she won't have to formulate fiscal policy
the next morning.

Ostensibly the law proscribes certain substances for mundane practical
reasons, because their consumption harms individuals and communities.
But there is still something essentially puritan in our national
attitude to drugs: intense gratification should follow the application
of effort. It should be a reward for virtuous behaviour. Getting it
from intoxication, legal or otherwise, is a kind of moral laziness. We
accept that kind of petty corruption in ourselves, but we like to
think that politicians are different; that they are acting in a higher
interest and so are more capable of the kind of discipline required
for abstinence.

So even when politicians have confessed to drug use, they rarely, if
ever, admit to having enjoyed it. Most enter caveats laden with
regret. 'It was wrong that I smoked it when I did,' said Jacqui Smith.
'She recognises that it was a foolish and silly thing to do,' a
spokesman said on behalf of Ruth Kelly. 'I didn't like it,' said David
Willetts. 'I don't want my kids to take drugs,' Boris Johnson stipulated.

Those responses define drug use as a mistake that the public should
forgive, as long as suitable contrition is expressed. That approach is
conditioned in large part, of course, by the technical awkwardness of
members of the legislature disobeying the rules. Hence, David
Cameron's carefully worded denial that he had taken drugs since
becoming an MP: 'Lawmakers should not be lawbreakers.'

That is a neat formula, but as a moral position it is meaningless.
Most drug users don't sit in Parliament. Presumably, MPs don't think
that ordinary punters' lack of legislative obligation should leave
them freer to break drug laws than public servants. If, say, Jacqui
Smith had decided to pursue a career in circus juggling, would she be
less judgmental about her old self? If significant numbers of
politicians have disregarded a law in the past, you might reasonably
expect them to debate the functional necessity and practicality of
that law.

But instead they express sinner's penitence and defer to the moral
authority of the law as it stands. In so doing they dodge the vital
question about their personal experience. Why do they think they
escaped unscathed from contact with drugs, when others did not?

They know the answer: the fact of them having ambitions to high public
office kept any miscreant tendencies in check. Most of the leading
politicians in this country who have taken drugs did so at university,
many at Oxford and Cambridge. That is, generally speaking, a pretty
tame exposure to drugs culture. Like many middle-class users, the
future Cabinet ministers were operating with an invisible cultural and
financial safety net. They had too much invested already in the future
to risk throwing it all away in drug-fuelled abandon. It was safer for
them to break the law precisely because they were on a trajectory to
be lawmakers.

That's the hidden reason why politicians never discuss drugs candidly.
Of course, any candidate with narcotics in his past will have to
undergo some symbolic purgation by media, which most would rather
avoid. But that can be managed with a dose of contrite spin.

The real reason politicians hate talking about drugs isn't because
they fear being perceived as reprobates and criminals. Quite the
contrary, if they were honest they would admit how removed their
experiences were from the real criminality of the drugs trade. They
would have to acknowledge that it isn't necessarily the substance that
harms, but the context in which it is taken.

But politicians' acknowledgment of why they came away unscathed from
contact with drugs would be a rebuttal of the whole case for
prohibition. It would suggest that, given the right cultural and
economic incentives to moderation, some drug use is safe. The really
toxic admission for a politician isn't having taken drugs, but having
done so after clear-sighted evaluation of the risks; having enjoyed
them, and having no regrets.

Politicians and their 'confessions' Boris Johnson - no effect 'I tried
[cocaine] at university and I remember it vividly. It achieved no
pharmacological, psychotropic or any other effect on me
whatsoever.'

Oliver Letwin - I blame my friends 'At Cambridge, I was a very
pretentious student. I grew a beard and took up a pipe. Some friends
put some dope in a pipe I was smoking. It had no effect.'

Yvette Cooper - I was a kid 'I did try cannabis while at university,
like a lot of students at that time, and it is something that I have
left behind.'

Jacqui Smith - so long ago 'I have [smoked cannabis] when I was at
university. I think it was wrong that I smoked it when I did. I have
not done for 25 years.'

Tim Yeo - no big deal 'I was offered [cannabis] on occasion and
enjoyed it. I think it can be a much pleasanter experience than having
too much to drink. I found it agreeable.'

Tony McNulty - I 'encountered' it 'I encountered it [at university], I
smoked once or twice. I don't think many people who were at university
at the time didn't at least encounter it.'