A United Nations drugs official has criticised Amy Winehouse and Kate Moss for "glamourising" the use of cocaine.
Warning that Colombian drug barons had recently found new routes for importing the drug into Europe, mainly via West Africa, Antonio Costa of the UN's Office On Drugs And Crime said that cocaine use in the UK had doubled in the last decade, and blamed stars like Winehouse and Moss who, he says, glorify the use of the drug, for contributing to that rise.
Costa: "Look at Kate Moss, who still receives lucrative contracts after she was photographed sniffing [cocaine]. Amy Winehouse became popular by singing 'I ain't going to rehab' even though she badly needed and eventually sought treatment".
He added that the growing power of the drug barons in West Africa was damaging the economies there, implying that those who used or glamorised the drug contributed to poverty in Africa. He concluded: "A sniff here and a sniff there in Europe is causing another disaster in Africa, to add to its poverty, its mass unemployment and its pandemics".