21/07/2007 00:00:00
UK: Yes, I did smoke cannabis says MP
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SOUTH Dorset MP Jim Knight yesterday joined other Government ministers
in admitting to smoking cannabis during his university days at Cambridge
- but says he supports plans to review the drug's classification.
He says it is more important what the Government does now than what MPs
were doing in their youth.
Press attention focused this week on Ministers in Gordon Brown's
newly-formed Cabinet who confessed to trying the drug, in the week the
premier announced a review of its earlier decision to downgrade the drug
from class B to class C.
They included the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, and Home
Secretary Jacqui Smith, who will be responsible for the review of the
nation's drugs strategy.
Mr Knight told the Dorset Echo: "I think the leader of the opposition
had a good line when he said he had a normal university career. I did
try it at university and, like Jacqui Smith, I regret that and didn't
enjoy it.
"I know of people who have had problems with it and it is not something
I would condone.
"It is important people are honest but it is more important what we do
now than what people did 25 years ago."
The frankness of the Labour ministers has heaped more pressure on David
Cameron who, under intense media speculation when he first became
Conservative party leader, refused to comment either way.
West Dorset MP Oliver Letwin has gone on record as saying he took
cannabis unknowingly at Cambridge when some friends mixed it with
tobacco in his pipe. He claimed it had no effect and he was very angry
about it.
Mr Knight said he was fully behind the review of the legal status of
cannabis.
He said: "We have increasing evidence that a lot of cannabis consumed
now is increasing in strength and we have increasing evidence of a link
between cannabis use and mental illness. It is very much about what is
the appropriate action now."
http://www.thisisdorset.net/display.var.1562845.0.yes_i_did_smoke_cannabis_says_mp.php
Source:
http://www.ukcia.org/news/shownewsarticle.php?articleid=12726
Author:
Dorset Echo via UKCIA
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