BOLTON MP Brian Iddon and council chiefs have leapt to the defence of a controversial town hall show starring a self-confessed drugs dealer.

Howard Marks, once reputedly the world's largest cannabis distributor, has provoked anger with his scheduled appearance at the Albert Halls.

His one man show, An Audience With Mr Nice, has sold out venues across the country with anecdotes about his exploits.

The BEN reported yesterday that anti-drugs campaigners were dismayed about the November 8 show they feared would glamorise drug taking.

But Bolton South east MP Brian Iddon, who has shared a platform with Marks in debates about the decriminalisation of cannabis, believes such fears are wide of the mark.

He said: "I've not seen his stage show but he does not glamorise drugs. He certainly doesn't glamorise the taking of harder substances."

Mr Iddon said Marks, a physicist and now an occasional travel writer for The Observer, had had a colourful life of which his drugs past was only one strand.

"He's a man of wide experience with a lot of stories to tell other than the obvious ones," he said.

A council spokesman said: "When we were approached by agents promoting Howard Marks we considered the issue very carefully and discussed it with other civic venues around the country.

"From the information we received it was felt that the show did not glamorise that particular side of his life but was a look at the whole of his life so far. On that basis we accepted the booking."

Marks, 55, was sentenced to 25 years in America's Terre Haute Penitentiary and released after seven. His subsequent autobiography, Mr Nice, was an international smash and Britain's bestselling non-fiction book in 1997.

Bolton student Alex Barnes, 19, of School Hill, on the fringes of the town centre, also contacted the BEN to support Marks.

He said: "I've read Mr Nice and Marks never once dealt anything other than cannabis. Chemical drugs kill people but cannabis is a herbal drug and there's no connection between the two."

His Albert Halls booking was branded " a disgrace" by Patrick Murphy, of Lostock, whose 25-year-old daughter Andrea died after taking an obscure club drug.