BBC's Robert Peston smoked 'a lot of dope' from the age of 12

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• published: 24 May 2016
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SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE: Robert Peston admits he smoked 'a lot of dope' from the age of 12 While the ministers he interviews are always reluctant to discuss their colourful pasts, attention-loving TV presenter Robert Peston has decided to reveal his own history of drug taking. Political editor Peston, who defected to ITV in a £400,000 move from the BBC earlier this year, admits he was a heavy user of cannabis. However, he claims the drug did not cause him or his contemporaries in bohemian London circles any lasting damage. After confessing that he drank a lot of beer, wine and cider as a teenager, the Labour peer’s son says he took what he describes as ‘a lot of dope’.  ‘I didn’t do hard drugs but from about the age of 12, 13 onwards there was a lot of dope around and we smoked it,’ Peston says. Numerous studies have linked marijuana use to increased risk for psychiatric disorders, including psychosis, depression and anxiety, but Peston claims there were no ill-effects. ‘I’m not remotely saying it’s a good thing to smoke any of that kind of stuff,’ he says. ‘I’m just saying that it happened, and if I look around the people that I grew up with, I don’t think it did any of us any serious harm. It certainly didn’t do me any serious harm.’  Peston, who is known for his strangulated vowels and long pauses, says he delayed making his admission, to be broadcast on a forthcoming edition of Radio 4 programme My Teenage Diary, until his son reached adulthood. ‘One of the reasons I left talking about my diaries until this age was my youngest kid is now 18, so I can’t be a bad influence on him by talking about quite how much we drank in the early Seventies.’ The 56-year-old broadcaster, whose writer wife Sian Busby died of lung cancer in 2012, launched his new political talk show, Peston on Sunday, earlier this month to disappointing ratings