None of our Business

Two whole pages of today’s Times were devoted to it and yesterday’s free London papers shouted it from their front pages – the Home Secretary has confessed to smoking cannabis at university. In other news, the Pope confessed some Catholic tendencies… Anyway, despite cannabis being relatively harmless (see above), the papers were full of reports that various cabinet ministers had confessed to this “crime” (although oddly enough not one of them enjoyed it).

First, a point of pedantry – it isn’t a breach of the law to smoke cannabis, or, indeed, take any other drug. Possession is illegal, dealing drugs is illegal, but consumption is not.

Second, a point of principle – it is none of our damned business. Even politicians are entitled to private lives and if it doesn’t effect how they do their jobs we do not have a right to know about it. If Jacqui Smith, or any of her cabinet colleagues, were still taking drugs, it would definitely be in the public interest for papers to report it, but the truth is she isn’t and hasn’t for a quarter of a century. Now, I may not be an expert, but I’m fairly sure you can’t be stoned for 25 years.