London, Sept 12 : Cocaine use is being glamorized by models and actors, according to George W Bush''s drugs tsar, who warns that the effect is encouraging young middle class professionals to start using the addictive drug.

While on a visit to London, Walters said that impressionable young professionals in their 20s were being sucked into drug addiction because celebrities were using them and not coming to any harm.

"I am surprised by cocaine use here. We found out the hard way how addictive it is,” Telegraph quoted Walters, who has Director of National Drug Control Policy at the White House since 2001, as saying.

"I am surprised that cocaine is still seen by well educated and well informed people as something to be toyed with.

"It is favoured by young people who see it being used by fashion models and actors. People follow the actresses and models and then they do it too.

"Young people are feeling invincible and that they are fine doing it. But it is like Russian roulette. There is a live round in the chamber and it will take your brain,” he added.

Americans had "found out the hard way" in the 1980s how addictive and dangerous cocaine could be, he said, describing the drug as a "nightmare poison".

He said that snorting cocaine was not "risk free drug use".

He added: "This is a disease of the brain." (ANI)