Television and radio stars who use cocaine are praised for their "off-the-wall" brilliance instead of being reprimanded, according to a former BBC producer who claimed that drug use is rife in the industry.

Sarah Graham claimed that the stars’ erratic behavior is not a sign of creative genius but of addiction to cocaine.

Anita Singh of the UK’s Telegraph writes that Graham, who has worked for BBC Radio 5, Children's BBC, and Channel 4's The Big Breakfast, was giving evidence to a Home Affairs Select Committee hearing on the cocaine trade.

Graham told MPs that she was offered cocaine on her very first day at the BBC in the 1990s, during a night out in Soho with the presenter and producer of the show on which she worked. She was fresh out of university and working as a researcher for Radio 5.

"We were celebrating the end of a live show. I had a few glasses of champagne and I was asked if I would like to go to the toilet and do some cocaine," Graham recalled. "I'm ashamed to say I didn't really know very much about cocaine beyond the hype—celebrity, glamour, success—that goes with it and I unfortunately went to the toilet and took cocaine and I believe that changed the course of my life from that point on."

That evening was the beginning of a decade-long addiction for Graham, 40, who was admitted to a rehab clinic in 2001. She is now a Harley Street drugs counselor and a spokesman for Frank, the Government's drugs information service.

Asked if her former colleagues were still in place at the BBC, she replied: "One of the things about the media...is that, as your addiction progresses, certain behaviors which would not be tolerated in a normal job can actually be spun to be part of your creative genius or part of your extraordinary personality.”

"So some of those people are still in place, some of them are behaving in off-the-wall ways and are enabled left, right and center, and people bow down to them. Some of this stuff is rewarded—it depends where you are and who you are."

She added: "There is a culture within the media and within the celebrity world that is very relaxed around the use of cocaine. It's seen as something that is socially acceptable in certain areas, in industries where this 'work hard, party hard' ethos exists. The hype about drugs is that all these successful people are doing drugs...I bought into the showbiz myth of cocaine being part of that success."