Hugh Hefner thinks anti-drug laws “corrupted” America

Hugh Hefner thinks anti-drug laws have “corrupted” America.

The magazine mogul has been campaigning for drugs to be decriminalised for decades because he is convinced the current legislation is “irrational”. Though he has never taken illicit substances himself, the Playboy founder thinks the world would be a better place if all drugs were legal.

“You have to solve these problems in a social-medical way,” the 83-year-old lothario said. “What is the rational justification for these laws? Moral views based on what? Not on reason. These laws are truly hurtful to society.

“Prohibition gave us organised crime. Our laws in terms of drugs not only put all kinds of people who have drugs problems in prison, but in the process completely corrupt entire countries.”

The fight against anti-drugs legislation is particularly personal for Hefner. In 1975, his secretary Bobbie Arnstein overdosed in a Chicago hotel room. Hefner blames her death on a “bogus” court case that saw her convicted of transporting cocaine. He claims the charges were fabricated in a bid to ruin his career.

“The real problems I had, back in the 60s and 70s, had less to do with naked women than the fact I was trying to change the world,” Hefner added to Britain's The Independent newspaper. “I had provided money to decriminalise marijuana and they came up with a bogus drugs case that resulted in my secretary committing suicide, when they were trying to get something on me.”