{"id":402723,"date":"2026-02-01T19:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/402723\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T19:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:00:07","slug":"ive-never-taken-drugs-or-drunk-alcohol-says-zack-polanski-zack-polanski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/402723\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve never taken drugs or drunk alcohol, says Zack Polanski | Zack Polanski"},"content":{"rendered":"

The leader of the Green party, Zack Polanski<\/a>, has said he has never taken drugs or \u201ceven drunk alcohol\u201d in his life, but wants to legalise all drugs and regulate their use.<\/p>\n

Polanski was asked on the BBC\u2019s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme if he had taken drugs at university. \u201cI\u2019ve actually never taken a drug in my life, or even drunk alcohol, but I still don\u2019t sit here as the fun police,\u201d he said. \u201cI very clearly believe people should be able to do what they want to do. It just wasn\u2019t for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told Kuenssberg that politicians who admitted taking drugs and then advocated for incarcerating drug users were taking a \u201chypocritical approach\u201d, when a \u201cpublic health approach\u201d was needed to prevent deaths.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about legalising and regulating. If someone has a problematic relationship to drugs then surely the answer is to make sure they\u2019re seen by a medical professional who can help them,\u201d Polanski said.<\/p>\n

Keir Starmer, who has previously said he \u201cworked hard and played hard\u201d at university in response to questions about whether he used drugs at university, accused the Green party<\/a> of being \u201chigh on drugs, soft on Putin\u201d during prime minister\u2019s questions last Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Polanski, a member of the London assembly, said hearing Starmer \u201cmaking cheap jokes delivered badly\u201d about drug use from the dispatch box was \u201cpretty disgraceful\u201d and that joking about Putin and Russia was also \u201cpretty vile\u201d, especially when he was not in the House of Commons to defend his party.<\/p>\n

Illegal drug use was \u201cvery racialised\u201d, he said, with innocent young black people far more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs than their white peers. \u201cWe\u2019ve had ministers both from the Labour and the Conservative government<\/a> who have openly said on record that they\u2019ve taken drugs, yet they\u2019re putting in prison people who have taken drugs, and very often, again, it\u2019s disproportionately young black and brown people.\u201d<\/p>\n

He initially evaded a question about whether legalising class A drugs \u2013 including heroin and cocaine \u2013 could send a message to young people that the use of dangerous drugs was OK, telling Kuenssberg: \u201cFirst of all, we could talk about alcohol, which can sometimes be one of the most dangerous drugs, and actually we need a public health approach to that too.\u201d<\/p>\n

When pressed to answer the question, he said: \u201cI think the danger is happening right now, which is where we\u2019re pushing it [dangerous drug use] into street corners and into a black market \u2026 The war on drugs is not working. In fact, it\u2019s making drugs more dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we need is a grownup conversation, based on evidence, taking a public health approach that looks at prevention, intervention and makes sure that afterwards, people can get the support they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether he was teetotal as a matter of principle, he said: \u201cNot at all. I just grew up in school where a lot of my friends were drinking and, in fact, taking drugs. And often it felt like someone needed to be sober.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier in the interview, he told Kuenssberg that a surprising fact about himself was that he used to breakdance. \u201cI\u2019ve always liked dancing without taking drink or drugs,\u201d he added. \u201cIf anyone wants to do it and they\u2019re doing it safely, I\u2019m really glad people are having a good time, but we know lots of people aren\u2019t taking it safely, so let\u2019s make sure they get the support they need.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The leader of the Green party, Zack Polanski, has said he has never taken drugs or \u201ceven drunk…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-402723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}