[Sativa]

SENIOR federal government minister Nick Minchin has admitted he smoked dope at high school, but says he cannot recall whether he and Peter Garrett shared a joint at college.

It may have come as a bit of a shock to the audience at the National Press Club that the now silver-haired coalition senator, with the stuffy portfolio of minister for finance, smoked marijuana when he was young, but he freely admits it.

Former Midnight Oil frontman Mr Garrett, and now Labor frontbencher, came under the spotlight this week after Silverchair singer Daniel Johns said he had smoked joints with the MP and U2 rocker Bono.

Johns later retracted the comment, saying it was a joke, but Mr Garrett released a statement admitting he smoked marijuana when he was in his 20s.

"Peter Garrett was there (at Burgmann College) at the same time as me, and my recollection is that at that time we were both much more interested in bodysurfing on the NSW south coast than in politics," Senator Minchin told the National Press Club in Canberra.

Asked by a journalist whether they had smoked marijuana together, Senator Minchin quipped: "I don't recall actually smoking dope with Mr Garrett ... the room was too cloudy."

But he freely admits he smoked the weed when he was at high school in the United States, but today has strong views against its use.

"For me to suggest that I have never smoked marijuana, I would be lying through my teeth. Of course I did at that time at school and probably at university," Senator Minchin said.

He said the casual, social use of marijuana was a fact of life for people of his vintage that went to school and university in the late 60s and early 70s.

"So I'm not going to play games and pretend it didn't occur," the South Australian senator said.

Labor leader Kevin Rudd, who also went to Burgmann, said today that smoking marijuana was never part of his scene.

"I've always had a very tough line on this stuff – really, really hard line," Mr Rudd told the Nine Network.

"I'm in John Howard's camp on this one. We have a unity ticket."

Senator Minchin's views are also quite different today and he actively discourages smoking marijuana.

"I do strongly believe that the consumption of marijuana is very dangerous to be actively discouraged," he said.

"I have three children. One is in primary, one is in secondary and one in tertiary, and I do spend a lot of my time explaining to them the evils of consumption of marijuana, and do as I say, not what I do."

News Hawk - Lord Mong http://www.420magazine.com/
Source: Herald Sun
Author: Colin Brinsden
Contact: news@heraldsun.com.au
Copyright: © Herald and Weekly Times 2007
Website: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...84-662,00.html