UK - Home secretary: I smoked cannabis

[Evil GIR]

Jacqui Smith: Smoked cannabis "more than 25 years ago"

Smith interview
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has admitted she smoked cannabis while she was at Oxford University in the 1980s.

Her
disclosure came the day after Prime Minister Gordon Brown said she
would head a review of UK drugs strategy - including reviewing the
cannabis laws.

"I did break the law... I was wrong... drugs are wrong," Ms Smith, 44, said.

She
had smoked it "just a few times", had "not particularly" enjoyed it and
had not taken any other illegal drugs, she told the BBC.

A
number of senior politicians have admitted smoking cannabis in their
youth - including at least one of her predecessors as home secretary,
Charles Clarke.

'Learnt my lesson'

Asked why today's
students should listen when she urged them not to try the drug, she
said that over the past 25 years the dangers of cannabis use had become
clearer.

These included the mental health dangers of cannabis and the increasing strength of the drug.


I hope that my experiences in my life have actually helped me understand that I do want crime tackled
Jacqui Smith
Home secretary

Profile: Jacqui Smith

Ms Smith said she did not think her admission made her unfit to be home secretary.

"I
think in some ways I have learnt my lesson and I have a responsibility
as home secretary now to make sure we put in place the laws and the
support and information to make sure we carry on bringing cannabis use
down, which we are doing," she told GMTV.

"On the whole I think people think human beings should do jobs like this. I am not proud about it, I did the wrong thing.

"One
of the things about being a politician is that you are often criticised
for not knowing what's going on. I hope that my experiences in my life
have actually helped me understand that I do want crime tackled."

Political confessions

On
Wednesday, the prime minister told MPs that laws introduced in 2004,
making possession of cannabis a largely non-arrestable offence, could
be reversed.

Ms Smith, who graduated from Hertford College in
Oxford in 1984, went on to be a secondary school teacher before
becoming one of the so-called "Blair babes" when she was elected
Redditch MP in 1997.


I've never taken any hard drugs. When I was a student, I took one or two puffs of marijuana but that was it.
Vernon Coaker's confession on becoming drugs minister in 2006

Cannabis law reviewed

Her
appointment as home secretary was arguably the biggest surprise in
Gordon Brown's first Cabinet, being promoted from her previous backroom
role of labour's chief whip.

Past cannabis use has become less
of an issue for politicians in the UK over recent years as a growing
number have admitted using, or trying the drug while younger.

In
2000 then shadow home secretary Ann Widdecombe's call for £100 fines
for cannabis possession led to eight members of the Conservative shadow
cabinet admitting to smoking cannabis in the past.

Credible laws

Home
Office minister Vernon Coaker admitted "when I was a student, I took
one or two puffs of marijuana but that was it". Other past or present
Labour ministers who have admitted cannabis use include Caroline Flint
and Patricia Hewitt.

In 2004 the drug was downgraded from Class
B, which includes things like amphetamines, to Class C alongside things
like anabolic steroids, making it a largely non-arrestable offence.

The
then home secretary David Blunkett said it was necessary to make drug
laws credible and focus police efforts on the most dangerous drugs.

But
the following year his successor, Charles Clarke, also considered
reviewing the decision, after a link was suggested between cannabis use
and mental illness.

Ms Smith is now to review whether it should
be reversed in the light of research into links between cannabis use
and mental health problems, and with crime.

A Home Office
spokesman said the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) will
be asked to review reports that danger from cannabis is increasing due
to wider availability of more potent strains such as "skunk".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6905886.stm

What a bunch of hypocrites and I always notice they always say I tried it an no sir I dont like it.