Admit it, you enjoyed a puff now and then

Whenever a politician confesses to long-past, youthful drug taking, he or she always says that they never enjoyed the experience or that it did nothing for them. I haven't read the works of AV Dicey but I assume that making that statement is some venerable part of the ancient British constitution. Jacqui Smith didn't enjoy smoking cannabis. Nor did the drugs minister Vernon Coaker. Nor did the following:

Patricia Hewitt: I tried cannabis once when I was a student. It didn't do anything for me

David Willetts: I had two puffs. I didn't like it

Mo Mowlam: I tried marijuana, didn't like it particularly

Archie Norman: It didn't do much for me

Peter Ainsworth: It did nothing for me at all. It made me feel slightly sick

Oliver Letwin: It had absolutely no effect on me at all

You get the picture.

Only the former Tory minister Tim Yeo broke the rule, saying:

I enjoyed it. It can be a much pleasanter experience than having too much to drink.

It's strange, isn't it? How come cannabis is such a widespread problem (as ministers claim) if no one enjoys smoking the stuff (as all ministers claim about their own experiences). No front-rank politician seems willing to admit that drug taking can be pleasurable, and that's why people do it, sometimes to their own detriment.

It's worth re-reading this politically incorrect Jamie Whyte column about drugs.

Nobody involved in "the drugs debate" ever mentions it. The main benefit of taking drugs is that it is pleasurable. In fact, it can be incredibly pleasurable. That is why people do it. And also why it is good for them. Drug users are simply people for whom the pleasure outweighs the risk of death, illness, addiction and all the rest. In other words, they are people for whom the benefits of drug use exceed the costs. They wouldn't be drug users otherwise.

Robbie Millen

Comments

[Candadai Tirumalai]

W.H. Auden was of course no politician. Some 40 years ago he took LSD under the supervision of a doctor, presumably because some creative people claimed that it opened new doors of perception. All that happened, he said, was that he saw his mailman across the street from his New York apartment and thought he was waving to him rather strangely.

[Paul Duffy]

Tim Yeo's confession gave rise to one of my favourite letters to a national newspaper - it read:

"Tim, yo!"

[Simon Stephenson]

Yes, it's an extension of "tame the mainstream" as I set out earlier today in

http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2007/07/the-bbc-news-we.html#comments

Authority can deal with many arguments about drug-taking, and society's approach to it, but what it's not prepared to allow into the discussion is that, for many, it's a rational, calculated decision to do something pleasurable, despite the risks involved. Modern orthodoxy has it that there can be no official admission that the taking of drugs has any plus side at all, and no ambitious politician is going to rock the boat by being truthful about their drug experiments.

[adam]

I think there's some sample bias here. People that enjoy taking drugs tend to spend their time taking drugs rather than working their way up the political ladder.

[David Gray]

I wonder what the result would be if every politician were to undergo a drugs test tomorrow...