Actually I’m sure he doesn’t smoke dope, but sometimes he seems like the only public figure who doesn’t or hasn’t.

The spooky thing is that every politician who admits to having a puff says that they didn’t enjoy it at all, some go further and say they were forced or tricked into it. (Interesting declension of the verb for having a puff: “I tried it, you smoked it, they used it”). You do have to wonder how it ever got so popular if everyone who tries it doesn’t enjoy it. There are a few logical reasons for this:

• Our politicians are unrepresentative of the general population. Or…
• They are fibbing. Or…
• There is nothing special about dope one way or another, and its only popular because its illegal.

That last one is the most positive for the politicians – it implies that the sort of people who base their tastes on whether they actually like something and not for a cheap thrill of doing something naughty are the sort of people who tend to become politicians. In other words it implies that politicians are unrepresentative of the population but only because they are better. Mind you, it also implies that you could solve the drugs problem by making them legal so they would have to be careful using it as an explanation.

A mixture of all three seems most likely…

Maybe thats the answer to a few problems though. We could solve the country’s obesity problems by making fresh vegetables illegal and then we would see all the young rebels loitering in shady alleys waiting for their broccoli dealer to turn up.

Of course, everyone with a blog or newspaper column is making variations on the same comments, but I think that there is a conclusion which can be drawn from all the questions and admissions, but it can be drawn not from the answers, or even from the questions but from the fact that the question is asked at all and how it is asked.

It is now routine for journalists to ask new or newly-prominent politicians if they have ever tried cannabis and they ask it with every expectation of getting an answer. Unless they are asking Dave the Chameleon obviously. I think this shows some sort of assumption that society doesn’t really have much of a problem with it and does not really see it as a crime.

Can you imagine it being routine for politicians to be asked if they have ever shoplifted? Or if they have ever beaten their dog? Or if they have ever driven while drunk? Or if those questions were asked would the questioner really expect any sort of answer beyond a deflection which accuses the questioner of being impertinent and offensive? Put it another way, if an MP had nicked some CDs from a shop in his youth, mistreated his pets, often driven home after downing 8 pints at a party and had regularly wound down with a spliff and had to admit to one, which one would they most likely admit to?

I would love, just once, for an MP to say “I used to smoke dope. I enjoyed it. It so happens that I don’t smoke at all now, but I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

And I still can’t work out why classified drugs are “used” while even the most seasoned alcoholic is not said to ‘use’ alcohol and chain-smokers are not said to ‘use’ cigarettes. If fact if you are addicted, whether to cocaine, alcohol, tobacco or cannabis it is probably more accurate to say you are being used by the fags, booze, or whatever than the other way round. “Use” implies a degree of control which the addict does not really have.