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Horse racing - Source: Photosport
Jockey Kieren Fallon said horse racing has a drugs problem and singled out Newmarket, the traditional headquarters of the sport in Britain.
He told the Inside Sport programme on BBC TV to be broadcast later on Tuesday: "I don't mean in the weighing room. I mean outside. Newmarket has the highest rate (of drug use) for its population in any town in England.
"I know there is (a drug problem in racing). I don't know what can be done. I've done something and I'm all right."
Fallon, 44, returned to the sport in September after serving an 18-month drugs ban.
He told TV presenter Clare Balding: "If there were people that needed help I would love to advise them. I think there's plenty if you really want help but it's up to yourself."
Newmarket trainer Chris Wall told BBC Radio 5 Live: "I know Kieren has obviously had a problem with drugs and maybe he is saying it is easy to get them here and that's how he got sucked into it.
"I can understand that and wouldn't deny there was a problem in the town but I don't think we're any different from a lot of other towns throughout the country and there's a lot that gets done for it."
Irish-born Fallon also served a six-month ban from November 2006 for testing positive for a metabolite of cocaine.
In 2007, he was cleared of all charges at an Old Bailey race-fixing trial and Fallon said on Monday it was the stress of the prolonged proceedings that led him to take cocaine again.
"Obviously when things aren't going well, my life was spiralling out of control," he said. "Every second week we (were) having to take trips to England to my barristers.
"We couldn't see an end to it, we were no nearer after a year we couldn't see an end to it and you get to the stage you don't really care anymore."
Fallon has won the jockeys' title in Britain six times. He has captured the Epsom Derby three times and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe twice.
