British MPs and drug use … confessions

The confession by Environment Secretary Michael Gove that he once took cocaine has again shone the spotlight on past drug use by leading politicians.

Boris Johnson, the favourite to succeed Mrs May as Conservative leader and prime minister, admitted to GQ magazine in 2007 he tried cocaine and cannabis as a teenager at Oxford. “I tried it at university and I remember it vividly. And it achieved no pharmacological, psychotropic or any other effect on me whatsoever.” Despite his behaviour when younger, Johnson adde “I’ve become very illiberal about it. I don’t want my kids to take drugs.”

Sky also reports that International Development Secretary Rory Stewart has apologised for smoking opium at a wedding in Iran.

Stewart admitted to making a “very stupid mistake” 15 years ago, and said he “went to Iran to see the damage that opium was doing to communities”, when speaking to Sky last week.

Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has said he might have once tried cannabis in his youth, telling The Times “I think I had a cannabis lassi (drink) when I went backpacking through India.”

Via Sky