NO wonder the Liberal Democrats are all over the place: one of the contenders for the party leadership once declared that opium could be “safely experimented with” and that LSD “holds no surprises”.

This weekend Chris Huhne is discovering, just as David Cameron before him, that his undergraduate days at Oxford can come back to haunt him. Last night Huhne, 53, was doing his best to disown an article he appears to have written in an Oxford student magazine about the benefits of illegal hard drugs.

The piece, which bears his name as an 18-year-old student at Oxford University in the 1970s, states that drugs such as opium, LSD, and amphetamines should be an “accepted facet of our society”.

Most notable is the author’s apparent familiarity with class A substances and their effect when taken. “Opium is available in Oxford and, in its natural form can be safely experimented with,” the article states. Opium and the class A drug heroin are both opiates. “Colours, movements and shapes are serenely beautiful, as beautiful as a dream and as realistic as George’s [a cafe frequented by students] at 7.30 on a Monday morning.

“Acid [LSD] is manufactured in the labs and is the only drug which is getting cheaper . . . The considerable number of students at this university who drop acid are well-balanced highly intelligent people . . . if one is able to live with oneself . . . then acid holds no surprises.”

The article was published in the university’s Isis magazine in February 1973 clearly bearing his byline. But this weekend the MP for Eastleigh was struggling, possibly through the passage of time, to remember it. He said that he could not recall writing it and suggested he might only have been compiling the thoughts of other contributors.

“To be honest I don’t have any memory of it,” said Huhne. He insisted that it was his private business whether or not he had taken opium or any other drug, but said “the views that were [expressed in the article] are certainly not my views as they are at the moment”.

The disclosure comes as the contest for the Lib Dem leadership begins to look like a two-horse race between Huhne and the party’s home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg.

Steve Webb, the party’s manifesto writer, has ruled himself out of the contest and the former leader Charles Kennedy said it was “unlikely” he would put himself forward as a candidate. Kennedy previously quit the leadership after it emerged he had a drink problem.

Last week Sir Menzies Campbell quit, partly because many people regarded him as too old. Is there any candidate in the party young, sober and drug-free enough to claim the crown?

Clegg is emerging as the front-runner. He has nearly half of the Lib Dem front bench as supporters and is also endorsed by former leader Lord Ashdown. Some in the party say this is partly because they blame Huhne for the whispering campaign against Campbell. One Lib Dem MP said: “You can’t wield the dagger and then claim the crown.”

Huhne, who is regarded as intelligent but dry, is not entirely a stranger to controversy.

During the last Lib Dem leadership election, in which he was runner-up to Campbell, his supporters were accused of attempting to boost his standing by placing hefty bets on their candidate with the bookies. His camp has always denied the allegations.

Huhne went to Magdalen College and won a first class degree in politics, philosophy and economics. He began writing for Isis soon after starting university and became its joint editor for a period.

The exposition on the benefits of hard drugs was published as part of a longer article on how to “escape” the trials of being a student at Oxford.

“There are a number of people who are open-minded about experimenting with drugs,” recorded the piece, which was accompanied by a drawing of a hand holding a syringe.

“This tolerance is welcome, and it is only with the aid of this tolerance that drugs can be put in their correct unsensationalist place as a social phenomenon with great and respectable antecedents.”

When asked about the article Huhne said: “I was basically putting together large hunks of that, so God knows who wrote it and did anything and I wouldn’t attribute it to me if I were you.”

When told that his byline was attached, he added: “I may have edited the piece but as I say I was just bringing together whole loads of stuff.”

Huhne’s Oxford contemporaries said they could not recall him taking opium.

Rupert Wollheim, a fellow student at Magdalen, said: “If you are saying did I know Chris Huhne took opium, absolutely to the best of my knowledge not. I would probably have known because I had rooms next to him in college.”

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