Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has been charged with promoting drug use after admitting to having taken ecstasy nearly four decades ago, his party said.
The outspoken economics professor, who briefly served in the left-wing Syriza government during the country’s financial crisis in 2015, said on a recent podcast that he had once tried ecstasy at a festival in Sydney in 1989.
“It was a terrific experience until the days after,” he said on ‘3026: Human Algorithm’ in January, adding that he was able to dance for hours but then suffered migraines. He also said he had smoked marijuana in the past.
His party, MeRA25, said he has since been summoned to stand trial in December for “provocation and drug advertising”, and accused Greece’s conservative government of trying to silence him through the courts.
The 64-year-old Varoufakis, who is still a popular figure among the European Left, insisted that he told the anecdote to highlight the risks of drug use, telling listeners that addiction represents the “end of liberty”.
“That was my introduction to making the point that, however pleasant drug taking may seem, there is a price to pay,” he explained last month, after he was summoned by police for questioning.
“The Greek police have opened an investigation of me under the charge of… aiding and abetting the narco-mafia. [Do me a favour folks: Please don’t tell Trump, OK?]” he wrote.
Varoufakis wrote on social media on Thursday that the charge had “nothing to do with drugs”, but instead “must be seen within the wider, West-wide, surge of an insidious new form of fascism”.
“In this context, I am honoured by their determination to persecute me – as it grants me the privilege of calling upon people of good conscience, from around the world, to stand together, to oppose them,” he wrote.
His party said in a statement on Wednesday: “The idea of a political party leader standing trial for referring to his experience with substances many decades ago is not a random and innocent blunder.
“We will not remain silent. Neither about the provocative manipulation of the judiciary nor about the major problem of addiction.”
Varoufakis, a self-described “erratic Marxist”, is leader of the European Realistic Disobedience Front (MeRA25) party, which is a part of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), which he co-founded in 2016.
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