A leading Conservative politician has criticised Lily Allen after she accused people of sensationalising cocaine use.

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve told the Daily Mail newspaper Allen had been “naïve to assume there isn't human misery and suffering” involved in drug transactions.

“There is no doubt that drugs fuel crime and wreck lives,” he added.

In an interview with Word Magazine, Allen said she wished people wouldn't “sensationalise” stories about cocaine.
 
“I know lots of people who take cocaine three nights a week and get up and go to work. But we never hear that side of the story,” she said.

“I wish people wouldn’t sensationalise it. Some people are just bad at taking drugs.”

Allen admitted that she had taken the drug as a child despite disliking it because she was “lonely” and “everybody else was doing it”.

David Raynes, head of the National Drugs Prevention Alliance, told the Daily Mail Allen's comments could persuade young people to experiment with drugs.

“When someone like Lily Allen makes these remarks she is only harming young people who will at some point in their lives have to make a decision about taking drugs,” he said.

“We already have a major drug culture in the UK and she is affecting that.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Allen also said that she didn't "like Christianity much”.

CLICK HERE to read her full remarks.

Allen is due to release of her second album, 'It's Not Me, It's You', next month.

The singer has just arrived back in the UK from a holiday in the Caribbean, where she appeared to go public with her new boyfriend, art dealer Jay Jopling.