Yanis Varoufakis has condemned his prosecution as “ridiculous” after being charged with “inciting others in the illegal use of narcotics” over comments in which he admitted taking ecstasy nearly 40 years ago.
The 64-year-old former finance minister and leader of the small leftwing party MeRA25 faces a prison term of at least six months and fines of up to €50,000 if convicted. A court hearing is scheduled for December.
Speaking on a podcast in January, Varoufakis recalled taking ecstasy at a Kylie Minogue concert in Sydney in 1989 after a Mardi Gras parade.
“I’m not like Bill Clinton who ‘did not inhale’. I inhaled,” he said.
“I took ecstasy once. It was an amazing experience until a few days later when I had an incredible migraine… I remember dancing 15 to 16 hours, as if nothing had happened, but then I suffered for a week and never took it again.”
Describing the indictment as part of a broader political shift, Varoufakis wrote on X: “My ridiculous prosecution must be seen within the wider, west-wide surge of an insidious new form of fascism,” adding he was “honoured by their determination to persecute me.”
Critics accused him of abusing his role-model status, though other public figures in Greece have previously admitted drug use without prosecution.
Charalampos Poulopoulos, a professor of social work in addictions at the University of West Attica, said the remarks were “a constitutionally guaranteed right” and did not amount to promoting drugs, warning: “If convicted, he’ll become a hero. This very surprising prosecution neither serves the common good, nor public interest.”
MeRA25 said it would address addiction with “a modern scientific approach and not with gendarmerie-style attitudes from the 1950s,” while Varoufakis pledged to continue speaking out in what he called a society awash with “hypocrisy and cocaine.”
Source: The Guardian.
