Tory Leader Won’t Deny Marijuana Use
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
LONDON — The leader of Britain’s opposition Conservative Party, David Cameron, said he wouldn’t deny newspaper reports that he smoked marijuana as a teenager.
“I’m not issuing denials,” Mr. Cameron said yesterday after the Independent newspaper reported he used the illegal drug as a 15-year-old. “Like many people, I did things when I was young that I shouldn’t have done and that I regret.”
Mr. Cameron, now 40, was disciplined for smoking marijuana as a student at Eton College, one of Britain’s most prestigious schools, the Independent reported, citing a new biography of the Conservative leader. The book, “Cameron: the Rise of the New Conservative,” is being serialized in the newspaper.
The acknowledgement would make Mr. Cameron the first prospective British prime minister to have confessed to using an illicit drug.
Mr. Cameron’s predecessor as Conservative leader, Michael Howard, said in 2004 that he would increase penalties for cannabis use if he won an election.
