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Days after they backed toughening the law on cannabis, six British Cabinet Ministers have owned up to smoking the drug during their student years.
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, admitted experimenting with pot while an undergraduate at Oxford.
She said: "I was wrong when I did it more
than 25 years ago. I am not looking to excuse that."
Ms Smith added: "I've learned my lesson and I've got a responsibility as Home Secretary now to make sure we put in place the laws, the support, the information to make sure we carry on bringing cannabis use down."
Her confession - and Downing Street's insistence that Gordon Brown was relaxed over the issue - opened the floodgates as a succession of other Cabinet Ministers confirmed they had taken the drug during student days.
Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, said he had tried cannabis "occasionally in my youth", while his deputy, Andy Burnham, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said he had smoked it "once or twice at university and never since".
A spokeswoman for Ruth Kelly said the Transport Secretary had tried cannabis in "her youth", adding: "She realised it was foolish and gave up."
John Hutton, the Business and Enterprise Secretary, also dabbled with the drug as an undergraduate more than 30 years ago.
His spokesman said: "He regrets doing it now having seen the damage that cannabis can cause."
Both Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, and Yvette Cooper, the Housing Minister who has the right to attend Cabinet, have previously admitted trying cannabis.
Two of Ms Smith's junior Ministers at the Home Office, Tony McNulty and Vernon Coaker, also said they had taken the drug as students.
Mr McNulty said the Prime Minister's view that how ministers dealt with such questions was a personal matter was "exactly right".
He said: "Anyone who went to university in the late 70s, early 80s would have encountered and may have consumed cannabis. I certainly did, just like Jacqui did, and I think people would be more surprised if you managed to avoid it."
The confessions came the day after Mr Brown announced he had asked Ms Smith to re-examine the decision three years ago to downgrade cannabis from a class B to class C substance.
The review, which looks certain to reverse the policy, was endorsed by the Cabinet on Tuesday.
Its candour is in contrast to David Cameron's refusal to comment directly on the disclosure he took cannabis while a schoolboy at Eton College and a student at Oxford.
He has said: "Like many people, I did things when I was young that I shouldn't have done and that I regret. But I do believe that politicians are entitled to a past that remains private."
The shadow Cabinet also refuses to say whether they had youthful experience with soft drugs, apart from David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, who has made clear he had never touched them.
- INDEPENDENT
