THE former head of Scotland's drug enforcement agency has accused Amy Winehouse and Kate Moss of glamorising drug abuse by portraying rehab as an easy route out of addiction.

Graeme Pearson criticised “rehab chic”, saying that using clinics such as the Priory in London had become a badge of honour.

Pearson, director of Glasgow University's institute for the study of serious organised crime, said that most drug-users instead found themselves condemned to a life of addiction because they were unable to afford the specialist treatment available to stars.

“If you are Kate Moss or Amy Winehouse you can go to a five-star place and be brought back to normality,” he said. “If you are a kid on a housing estate in Glasgow, you can't. Once you fall off the wagon, you can't get back on. Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse's notoriety has a cash value and that is very damaging.”

Winehouse, who wrote and recorded the song Rehab, checked into the Priory last year after a long, public battle with drink and drugs.

In 2005, Moss, who has also attended rehab, was stripped of a lucrative modelling deal with the clothing chain H&M after photographs were published of her allegedly snorting cocaine.

She later received more than a dozen lucrative modelling contracts from companies such as Rimmel, Agent Provocateur and Louis Vuitton.

Pearson, who set up the highly acclaimed Choices For Life drugs education programme, also criticised the liberal drugs policy in Scotland and urged the government to adopt a Swedish-style “zero tolerance” approach.

“The message in Sweden is, ‘We will not tolerate drugs in our community,'” he said. “We don't take that view in Scotland. We say: ‘We'll give you advice about taking drugs safely. We'll manage drugs in the community'.

“The political vision and statement for Scotland has to be, ‘No drugs here'. All the agencies that operate underneath that - social work, health, housing, benefits and the voluntary sector - need to work to that message.”

Government figures showed that drug-related deaths in Scotland rose to a record of more than 420 in 2006 - 85 more than in 2005.

There are also fears that children are being exposed to drugs at a younger age.

In March, Britain was criticised by the UN drug control agency as one of the worst countries in Europe for cocaine abuse. Antonio Maria Costa, the UN drugs czar, denounced “coke-snorting fashionistas” such as Moss and Winehouse, saying that they encouraged a drugs trade that caused untold misery, corruption, and violence in Africa and South America.

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