Why ALL drugs should be legalised, by Jane Asher



Jane Asher: 'It's a complex argument'

She shot to fame in the Swinging Sixties but was always seen as one of that decade's more sensible stars.



However, Jane Asher has gone against that reputation by delivering an outburst in which she called for class-A drugs to be legalised.



The 64-year-old actress, who famously dated Sir Paul McCartney during the 1960s, says legalisation of all banned substances is 'the only hope' for tackling

widespread addiction across Britain.



Miss Asher made the comments after returning from Glasgow, where she had been working on the latest series of BBC1 comedy The Old Guys.



Some of the filming was at BBC Scotland's Pacific Quay headquarters, which are close to the notoriously deprived area of Govan, home to fictional Glaswegian Rab C Nesbitt.



She said: 'I really got out and about when I was staying in Glasgow. I'm a Londoner, I'm a city girl, and I'll wander through anywhere.



'I could see there were some pockets of deprivation in some areas of Glasgow, which is upsetting, but like London or any big city, it has its social problems, not just specifically Govan.



'But one of the areas we drove through to go filming on location one day was notorious for drugs.'



The actress added: 'Don't get me started on the whole drugs thing. They should legalise the lot of them as far as I'm concerned. That's the only hope. But it's far too complex an argument.



'There are so many legal highs out there just now, which are incredibly dangerous because they haven't been tested and yet they are readily available to buy over the internet.



I'm with him: In her days as Paul McCartney's girlfriend

'It's a mad situation - we're chasing after something we can never catch up with. Anyone who pretends that the policies on drugs have worked is talking nonsense,' she told the Daily Record.



Miss Asher lives in Chelsea with her cartoonist husband, Gerald Scarfe. The couple have three children, Katie, 36, Alex, 30 and Rory, 26.



She became a household name in 1963 when she began dating Paul McCartney at the height of Beatlemania. However, they called off their engagement in 1968 after he cheated on her with American model Francie Schwartz.



As well as acting, Miss Asher has written novels and lifestyle books. She also runs a company that makes cakes, which led to her being dubbed 'the personification of prim' by satirist Victor Lewis-Smith.



David Raynes, head of the National Drugs Prevention Alliance, described Miss Asher's comments as 'irrational'.



'If we legalise drugs, it will simply lead to more drug use, not less,' he said. 'We should be stopping people using them.'



