Liberal Democrat leadership hopeful Norman Lamb has said that more than half of current government ministers “almost certainly” tried illegal drugs in their younger years.

Speaking at an event organised by the Institute of Public Policy Research thinktank on Wednesday evening, the MP for North Norfolk described the UK’s current drugs laws as pathetic and a “monumental failure of public policy”.

“We have the crazy situation that, almost certainly, more than half of this government – half of the government ministers in a Conservative government – will have taken drugs in their younger years,” said Lamb, a former care minister under the coalition government.

“They put it down, in a very middle-class way, to youthful indiscretion, while other fellow citizens end up criminalised and their careers blighted as a result of taking a substance that is less dangerous than substances that are entirely legal.”

“We have tobacco, which kills about 100,000 people a year in our country,” said Lamb. “We have alcohol, which causes untold damage to families. And yet we chose to criminalise young people for smoking a joint.”

Lamb has previously called for the UK to legalise, regulate and tax the sale of cannabis, arguing that the UK should draw on examples from US states such as Colorado, which legalised the possession of small amounts of marijuana for recreational use by over-21s in November 2012.

bbabo.Net