cannabisnews.com: Children of 60s Reluctant to Make Confession





Children of 60s Reluctant to Make Confession
Posted by FoM on January 16, 2000 at 18:09:30 PT
By Sandra Laville
Source: Electronic Telegraph
Mowlam admits 'experimenting' with cannabis.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.ISSUE 1697 Monday 17 January 2000 Related Articles:Britain's Anti-Drug Chief Mowlam Smoked Cannabis - 1/16/2000http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4335.shtml
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on January 17, 2000 at 15:19:06 PT
Every excuse but the *real* one - they liked it.
Otherwise, why do it?All too often you read or hear or see some politician grudgingly admitting pot use... and then saying, they just 'experimented'. They 'tried' it. Fine. Chalk it up to the inevitable youthful experimentation we all go through. But the key question remains: under today's laws, someone doing what they did and got away with would be financially crucified, at the very least. How can they with a straight face, acting as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouth, say that they can support the Draconian laws that they once felt were immoral? If they are so worried about messages being sent to kids, how about this one: It's all right to be a two faced hypocrite so long as you are at the top of the socioeconomic and political ladder? They only go to prove IF Stone's dictum about governemnts: 'All governments are run by liars, and nobody should believe a word they say.'
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