What do David Cameron, Barack Obama and Leo Varadkar have in common?
All three have admitted to smoking cannabis. The Transport Minister made his admission a number of years ago in one of those cringey Hot Press interviews so beloved of politicians desperate to get down with the kids.
He is not alone. Many high-profile politicians, like "Biffo Spliffo" before him, readily admit to smoking cannabis in their debauched student days but very few, once in government and in a position to influence drug policy, will countenance its decriminalisation.
While Mr Varadkar escaped his youthful indiscretion with nothing more damaging to his reputation than a lava lamp and a collection of dodgy trance music, thousands of other people in this country, disproportionately young men, end up with criminal convictions that can have disastrous consequences for their work and travel opportunities.
If Mr Varadkar had been arrested and convicted of a drug offence all of those years ago then chances are he would not be a mnister today and would certainly not be tipped as a future Fine Gael leader.
Others have not been so lucky. Convictions, for possession of drugs for personal use, increased by 177%, from 7,138 to 12,679, between 2004 and 2011, while convictions for the cultivation of drugs, mainly cannabis, skyrocketed by over 1,500%, from 38 to 580, in the same period.
Source: Colette Browne, Irish Examiner, 04/07/12
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