UPDATED: Former Greek minister Yanis Varoufakis faces charges after admitting to ecstasy use in 1989

In a bizarre draconian move, former Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, has been charged with promoting drug use after admitting on a podcast to using ecstasy thirty-six years ago at a festival in Australia.

Varoufakis, who served as part of the Syriza government during the Greek financial crisis in 2015, made the confession in a podcast, telling the host that he'd dropped the pill at a Mardi Gras event in Sydney headlined by Kylie Minogue.

“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.”

In the same podcast, he described drug addiction as “the end of liberty", which definitely doesn't promote the use of drugs, legal or illicit, that are habit forming.

Taking last week to Twitter, Varoufakis suggested that: “My ridiculous prosecution must be seen within the wider, west-wide surge of an insidious new form of fascism. I'm honoured by their determination to persecute me.”

Kylie Minogue at Electric Picnic 2024. Copyright Liam Murphy

Tony Duffin, the Irish drug policy specialist and harm‑reduction advocate who co-presents our Dealing With Drugs podcast, says: “In most jurisdictions where drug prohibition is the law, the criminal offence relates to the possession of a controlled drug and not to someone having used a drug. That’s why the Varoufakis case is so unusual: he is not accused of possession or trafficking, but of alleged ‘incitement’ based on comments about something that happened 36 years ago.

"It is vital that politicians and public figures can speak openly and honestly about their drug use experiences. When they cannot, stigma deepens… and stigma is what stops people seeking advice and support. That, in turn, increases risk and exposes people to avoidable harm, including disease and death.”

Hot Press has also spoken to Marios Atzemis, Deputy Chair of the ATHENA-HYGEIA addiction centre and a Correlation Advisory Board Member.

"What is particularly striking in this case is the paradox it reveals about Greece’s drug policy discourse. A personal anecdote about taking a single ecstasy pill nearly four decades ago — shared without encouragement or advocacy — triggered a prosecutorial response and a wave of moral panic reminiscent of 1980s 'Just Say No' rhetoric. Parts of the media framed Varoufakis’ comment as if it posed an immediate threat to youth, reviving a fear-based narrative that equates open discussion with corruption.

"What makes the episode even more paradoxical is the reaction of Varoufakis’ party youth wing. In a video defending him, they rightly criticized the wave of moral panic and fear-based rhetoric that followed his remarks. Yet the same video opened with an explicit statement of support for KETHEA, Greece’s flagship abstinence-based treatment organisation.

"This juxtaposition is revealing. For decades, the dominant therapeutic and policy model in Greece has been heavily influenced by abstinence centered approaches that framed drug use primarily through the lens of deviance and moral failure. That framework also shaped a broader punitive and stigmatising public discourse.

"The result is a deeper contradiction within Greek political culture: a call to resist moral panic, while simultaneously affirming institutions historically associated with the very paradigm that helped entrench it. The case therefore highlights not only a legal controversy, but also an unresolved transition in Greece’s drug policy thinking — between prohibition-era reflexes and a still-emerging public health and harm reduction model."

In a statement, Varoufakis' MeRA25 party say: "The summons of the secretary of MeRA25, Yanis Varoufakis, to stand trial for 'provocation and drug advertising; (on December 16, 2026) constitutes yet another episode in the course of fascistization of the functioning of the judiciary and at the same time further proof of its absolute manipulation by the government and especially the far-right wing of New Democracy.

"In a country where the manipulations of the Justice System consistently cultivate social nihilism and despair, the targeting of Yanis Varoufakis proves that the system that conceals the truth in the cases of OPEKEPE, Tempi, Pylos, wiretapping, etc., chooses the secretary of MeRA25 as its 'dangerous' enemy. Not by chance, because he also tells the truth.

"At MeRA25, we consider their hatred against us and against our secretary to be our honour.

"Although the Greek justice system's stance on this case has provided a lot of laughter in Greek society, even to those who are not supporters of MeRA25 and its secretary, this story is still dangerous. The idea of ​​putting the head of a political party on trial for mentioning his experience with drugs many decades ago is not a random and innocent blunder. It is a message of a justice system that turns a blind eye to power and hunts down anyone who does not kneel before it.

"At MeRA25, we will not remain silent. Neither about the provocative manipulation of the judiciary nor about the major problem of addictions, to which we will continue to address with honesty and a modern scientific approach and not with 1950s gendarmerie concepts.

"We call on every political force, scientific body and democratic citizen to take a position by expressing public disapproval of the provocative summons of Yanis Varoufakis to trial."