Scottish party leaders admit past drug use at Glasgow uni conference

They were young too once


Three Scottish party leaders admitted to smoking weed when speaking at Glasgow uni on thursday

SNP leader Sturgeon, Tory Ruth Davidson and Lib Dem Willie Rennie all admitted to honking on a bifta in their youth.

All four deny that the drug should be made legal.

The arguments were made at Glasgow University’s Politics Society’s debate on Thursday Evening.

The event, which hosted the SNPs Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy, the Liberal Democrats’ Willie Rennie and Ruth Davidson of the Scottish Conservatives, covered a wide range of topics, including this controversial drug use one.

Nicola Sturgeon at the Successful Women at Glasgow talk

The admittance of the drug use came after prompting from the debate’s host – Radio Clyde’s political editor Colin Mackay.

Speaking in the debate, Sturgeon admitted to having tried cannabis ”“Once, probably, possibly at this university, and it made me awful sick.”

Davidson said: “I’m with Nicola, once or twice.”

Rennie said he had used cannabis “in my youthful days”.

Murphy denied cannabis use, saying instead that: “On the housing scheme that I lived in, glue-sniffing was the thing.”

Aidan Kerr, a politics student at Glasgow said to The Guardian that: “Willie Rennie started talking about needing a debate based on science, then the compere asked if he has ever tried cannabis himself. He said yes and the room started cheering – it was a typical student crowd.”