THE Rolling Stones, the original bad boys of rock, have warned younger pop idols not to take drugs, because of the health risks.

“When we were experimenting with drugs, little was known about the effects,” Sir Mick Jagger said at the premiere of a film showing the band in concert. “In our time, there were no rehab centres. Anyway, I did not know about them.”

Jagger, 64, achieved international notoriety when he was briefly jailed in 1967 for possessing drugs, but he is better known now for his devotion to fitness.

He prepares for tours by running eight miles a day, swimming and kick-boxing.

Keith Richards, the band’s guitarist and a former heroin addict, warned that if Amy Winehouse, the 24-year-old singer famous for songs such as Rehab and Addicted, does not give up drugs she could end up looking as wrinkly and wasted as him.

“She should get her act together,” said Richards, also 64, whose reputation for drug-fuelled antics led many to believe his joke that he had snorted his father’s ashes.

Jagger had previously expressed concern about Winehouse’s descent into alcohol and drug addiction, saying: “I’m worried she might die if she goes down the road that she has taken.”

Last year Ronnie Wood, 60, another of the Stones, who once snorted so much cocaine that he damaged his nose, encouraged Kate Moss, the model, to break up with Pete Doherty, the drug-addicted singer. Wood said Doherty “wasn’t exactly very good for her, was he?”.

Critics suggested the Rolling Stones were sounding like aged grandparents with dubious recall of their true past.

Alan Clayson, author of a recent biography of the band, The Rolling Stones: The Origin of the Species, said: “I am surprised they are having a go at Winehouse, but Mick is right on one point. The Betty Ford clinic didn’t exist in the 1970s. You had to rely on the NHS.”

Paul Gambaccini, the broadcaster, said: “Nowadays, we are a more drug-literate society and we know drugs could be a path to the grave.”

Andrew Oldham, the Stones’ manager in the 1960s and an addict until 12 years ago, said in New York yesterday: “The Stones had their fun and people might think this is rich coming from them. But we were lucky in the Sixties and we studied what we were doing and we took our drugs incrementally, starting with the harmless stuff. When it interfered with work, we said goodbye.

“If Keith was on Sunday Night at the London Palladium and had a spliff, who knew? But now if you are a pop star you live your success and your experimentation in public.” Winehouse has provoked widespread concern for her wellbeing after a string of cancelled gigs and performances in which she slurred her words.

A spokesman for the Stones, who invited Winehouse to join them on stage at a concert last year, said: “Mick and Keith were asked to give their views about Amy and did so. They are still good mates.”

Yesterday Winehouse, who left a rehab clinic last week and is expected to stage a comeback by performing at the Brit awards on Wednesday alongside such singers as the squeaky-clean Kylie Minogue, declined to comment, other than by saying she still regarded the Stones as her friends.

Adrian Hunter, Doherty’s manager, said: “We are not interested in what they say. Neither Mick Jagger nor Keith Richards has ever met Pete Doherty and they are talking about something they have no idea about.”

One of Winehouse’s fans had posted their own riposte on the singer’s fan website last night: “Oh dear Keef, pot meet kettle maaan.”

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