Yahoo News I haven't touched cocaine since I was a teenager, says Boris
Boris Johnson has denied using cocaine since a “single inconclusive event” more than 30 years ago.
The Conservative Party leadership favourite, who has repeatedly appeared to dodge questions over his previous drug use throughout his campaign to succeed Theresa May as Prime Minister, said he had only used the Class A substance once.
During an interview with BBC Radio 4’s World At One, Johnson described the incident as “a single inconclusive event that took place when I was a teenager and which I have extensively described”.
Asked if he had used the drug since then, he said: “No.”
Probing questions about previous misdemeanours and the use of drugs have become an evergreen feature of the Conservative Party leadership race.
Candidates such as Michael Gove and Rory Stewart made revelatory comments about their dabblings with cocaine and opium, respectively.
Mr Johnson, who was compared to Adolf Hitler on Friday, confessed to having used cocaine during an interview with British GQ magazine in 2007, in which he said it “achieved no pharmacological, psychotropical or any other effect on me whatsoever”.
But he was reluctant to elaborate when questioned about it during his campaign launch on Wednesday.
Read more on Yahoo News UK:
Matt Hancock pulls out of race to be Prime Minister
Lord Sugar backs Boris Johnson
Sajid Javid: Will the ‘outsider’s’ rise to success help him become PM?
He said: “I think the canonical account of this event when I was 19 has appeared many, many times.
“I think what most people in this country want us to really focus on in this campaign, if I may say so, is what we can do for them and what our plans are for this great country of ours.”
The former London mayor is the bookmakers’ favourite to replace Theresa May, who famously said the naughtiest thing she had ever done was “running through fields of wheat” as a child.
He finished top in the first round of votes for the Tory party leadership.
RACE FOR NUMBER 10: MORE FROM YAHOO UK
Michael Gove: The Brexiteer aiming to heal Tory rifts and land the top job
Jeremy Hunt: Can the ‘true blue Tory’ see off his rivals and land keys to No.10?
Johnson received 114 votes, significantly more than his nearest rival Jeremy Hunt, who came second with 43. Michael Gove, who has admitted using cocaine, was third with 37.
Earlier today, Johnson said he would take part in a BBC TV debate with the other candidates.
