England’s chief medical officer has admitted she ate hash cookies while at university in the 1970s.

Professor Dame Sally Davies made the revelation about the cannabis product on BBC Radio 3′s Private Passions while trying to make a point about the use of drugs in society.

‘I never smoked so I couldn’t smoke joints but I did have some cookies, until on the third or fourth occasion I had hallucinations and I’ve never touched it since,’ she said.

‘And I think I understood through that what my father said to me when I told him I was going to try it. He said: “Drugs de-civilise you. You stop being a civilised person”.