I smoked marijuana when I was a teenager, admits rising Labour star

Labour's rising star Chuka Umunna has confessed to smoking marijuana when he was a teenager.

The Shadow Business Secretary admitted he was ‘not proud' of trying the class B illegal drug while was working in the music industry.

Mr Umunna, 33, insisted that he had not taken any harder drugs and claimed that the public were no longer bothered if politicians have taken the drug.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, the Labour MP said he did think it was ‘news' any more that some political figures had used marijuana.

Some high profile MPs including David Cameron have refused to say whether they have experimented with drugs for fear of attracting public criticism.

The Prime Minister has famously refused to answer questions about this own drug use following reports that he was almost expelled from Eton for smoking cannabis.

Labour leader Ed Miliband has said he never tried drugs himself at university because he was a ‘bit square'.

Tory Louise Mensch last year issued a statement saying allegations that she had used drugs at a nightclub in Birmingham were ‘highly probable' and ‘not the only incident of the kind.'

Mr Umunna, who is tipped by many as a future Labour leader, said that he used to want to be a DJ and briefly ran a club night in Brixton, south London.

He admitted that during this time he ‘smoked soft drugs'. But he said: ‘That [the music] industry is rife with it. That was a [part] of the industry I found unattractive.

‘It's not something I'm proud of and I don't think it's news any more, to be honest.'

He also spoke in the interview about his father, who arrived in Britain from Nigeria ‘with a suitcase and no money', before building up a company from scratch.

Mr Umunna revealed he had to ‘grow up very quickly' at the age of 13 when his father died in a car crash in Nigeria after trying to run for political office in his home state.

The MP, who is chairman of the London Gangs Forum, is currently fighting for more young gang criminals to start businesses because he saw how his father ‘managed to go from no money to being very successful'.

He wants their ‘entrepreneurial zeal' to be channeled into business rather than criminal gangs.

02/07/2012 http://www.dailymail.co.uk