Reports: Michael Jackson on cornucopia of drugs at time of death
Published: June 27, 2009
Updated 4 months ago
Michael Jackson’s death has lifted a veil on the sinister underbelly of fame, with associates of the pop icon hitting out at celebrity-dazzled doctors who funnel powerful narcotics to the stars.
Jackson, who died Thursday aged 50 after collapsing at his home in Beverly Hills, had a long history of prescription drug use, stretching back to 1993 when allegations of child abuse were leveled at him.
Reports that Jackson had been injected with a powerful painkiller by a personal physician shortly before his death triggered speculation that the star had a ready supply of prescription medications. Days after his death, reports indicated that Jackson took a daily cocktail of Demerol, Vistaril, Soma, Dilaudid, Vicodin, Zoloft, Prilosec, Paxil and Xanax.
Further autopsy results are expected in six weeks. The first evaluation of Jackson’s remains did not indicate any foul play or illness. His family said on Saturday they may seek a second autopsy to answer lingering questions about the pop star’s death.
According to Jackson’s close friend and confidante, new age guru Deepak Chopra, who is a trained cardiologist, the entertainment world is rife with doctors who trade their access to drugs for celebrity.
“There’s a plethora of doctors in Hollywood that are drug peddlers, they are drug pushers,” Chopra said in an interview with CNN. “They just happen to have a medical license.”
Chopra spoke of a “huge problem” Hollywood had with “celebrity doctors who not only initiate people into the drug experience but then they perpetuate it so that people become dependent on them.”
“I think this is something that really should be investigated because it’s a disease,” Chopra added.
“The number-one cause of drug addiction in the world, and particularly in the United States, is not street drugs but medical prescriptions given legally by physicians.”
The fatal alliance of drugs and celebrity has been one of Hollywood’s longest-running narratives, whether its the decades-long addiction battle fought by Judy Garland before her death in 1969 aged 47 or recent cases such as the accidental overdose of Australian actor Heath Ledger in New York 2008.
The circumstances surrounding Jackson’s demise have meanwhile evoked eerie comparisons with the 2007 death of former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith.
Smith died of an accidental drug overdose in a hotel in Florida. An autopsy subsequently found a lethal cocktail of several prescription drugs in her body.
Smith’s boyfriend and two doctors are currently facing trial in California, accused of conspiring to provide the platinum blonde sex symbol with prescription drugs.
“These individuals repeatedly and excessively furnished thousands of prescription pills to Anna Nicole Smith, often for no legitimate medical purpose,” California Attorney General Edmund Brown said in March.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration on Friday renewed concerns about rising deaths from misuse of prescription pills.
“Diversion and abuse of prescription drugs are a threat to our public health and safety similar to the threat posed by illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine,” said Gil Kerlikowske, director of national drug control policy.
“In 2006, the last year for which data are available, drug-induced deaths in the United States exceeded firearm-injury deaths and ranked second only to motor vehicle accidents as a cause of accidental death.”
Chopra meanwhile revealed he first had an inkling Jackson was receiving drugs from multiple sources following his 2005 acquittal on child-sex charges when the star had stayed at his home.
“And at one point, he started asking me for a prescription. He knew I was a physician. I had a license. He asked me for a prescription for a narcotic. And I said what the heck do you want a narcotic prescription for?” Chopra said.
“It suddenly dawned on me that he was already taking these and that he had probably a number of doctors who were giving him these prescriptions. So I confronted him with that, and at first he denied it.
“Then he said he was in a lot of pain… I said, ‘Michael, you don’t need these drugs for that. There are so many ways to do it.’ And for a while, I lost him.”
With AFP.
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You’d think a doctor that was administering the volume of narcotics would have a vial of Narcan on hand to reverse the respiratory arrest brought on by narcotic cocktails. CPR is not very effective when you are in full respiratory arrest. Another poor excuse of a doctor, another person killed by prescriptions. It happens every day in America with even more deaths in US hospitals than you can imagine.
I’ll save them the trouble. He was a pedophile who killed himself with an overdose.
Every junky’s like a setting sun…
Jeesh, who did he think he was, Elvis? It would be quicker to list the drugs that WEREN’T in his system.
Prescription drugs kill 200,000 Americans every year. Cannabis kills NO ONE, and hasn’t in 10,000 years of known human use. But which one is illegal? Of course, the God made, non lethal one. But if you get a guy to write you a note, you can get all the deadly pills you want.
And yes, these doctors are far worse than the street pushers. These doctors have the law on their side. We go to jail for just giving someone else a bit of a plant, but these guys get away with killing people and just keep on doing it and doing it. It seems acceptable for the law that these people kill others, not to mention the big pharma companies that openly say that they are ONLY in business to make money, NOT to help or cure anyone of anything. They KNOW that their pills will kill people, just look through the Physician’s Desktop Reference or PDR. It lists ever drug available and the side effects, HUGE numbers of which include DEATH.
Kids in school are stealing their parent’s drugs and THAT is your biggest drug problem, now. Kids think these things are safe, and they are dying from them. This whole drug war thing has to end if you are EVER going to keep people from dying. And the pharma world has GOT to be held accountable for their pills. According to a very basic study done in Florida by the state coroner, it’s prescription drugs that are killing the most people of all drugs. And yet we go after people for smoking cannabis. What a fool’s game this is.
No, alcohol is the drug that kills the most of all drugs in the US.
Not even close. Tobacco out does everything else. 450,000 per year. Alcohol is only good for about 150,000 a year. Prescription drugs are good for 200,000 a year here. Aspirin kills about 150 or so. Cannabis kills no one. All the illegal drugs combines are killing about 20,000 a year. Not having health care does about the same, 20,000 a year.
jacko the pederast makes belushi look like a teetotaler. no way he would ever make it to opening night in london. and by the way, check out the video of “jackson’s” announcement a while back for those shows, and observe carefully. they were using an IMPOSTER! mannerisms, body language, physique, width of mouth, hair texture, and especially the voice (WAY lower)—-all wrong. it wasn’t jacko, who was too busy mainlining drugs in his wheelchair and far too gaunt to appear in public.
Heck, a fella could have a pretty good time in Las Vegas with all that stuff.
-apologies to Capt. Kong
[“Diversion and abuse of prescription drugs are a threat to our public health and safety similar to the threat posed by illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine,” said Gil Kerlikowske, director of national drug control policy.]
He then rounded up his buddies, and headed over to the local watering hole, where he ordered up a double scotch: “It’s hard work propagandizing against drugs users, and I need a little “tod for the bod” to relieve the stress it causes. He was oddly silent when asked what the most abused drug, that causes the most deaths in the US might be……
The most abused, deadly drug in America is tobacco. Alcohol is on the list, but it’s not number one.
Wonder how many deaths from mixing alcohol and drugs.
WJM, why are these people (no health insurance) not using County or Charity hospitals? I didn’t have any insurance outside of VA and when they couldn’t handle the problem sent me to the County hospital (came back from Indonesia). I was dying and these guys just would not give up, they would not let me die and I had only a 15% chance of living when I got there. The cost eventually ballooned to over 1 million. Medical picked it up. Do other states have anything like this or access to charity hospitals, because this was what my hospital was. Was I just lucky NOT to have insurance? That would be wild, saved because I had no insurance!
Robert S. Finnegan
Southeast Asia News
seanews1@yahoo.com
Jakarta, Indonesia
wjm50’s got it but the mortality figures from alcohol, when social deaths like drunk driving and doing stupid acts are added in, the number is much higher than from drinking oneself to death alone. ETOH’s social impact is huge and expensive.
The moment of truth has come. There are many who have family members who have this problem. There is no place to report this type of abuse. Doctors are the local pushers now days, and there is no way to stop them. Two members of my immediate family are caught in this web, and it cannot be stopped. Does anyone know how to?
Your state medical board will be more than happy to take your complaint.
The distilled spirits (alcohol) industry and the pharmaceutical industry have competed for the hearts and minds of the American consumer for decades. The Federal regulation on both is extensive and convoluted but primarily designed to keep the toxic nature of both products within the average range of physical tolerance of the consumer. Before you judge Michael Jackson from your sterile, lily white, gated imagination, read the “black box warning” for each of the drugs he was administered. You may conclude that his death was, like thousands of others. corporate murder sanctioned by the state. As far as physician involvement here, doctors are tools of the pharmaceutical industry.
Yes, we are tools but tools are neutral implements which can be used for good or evil. Some deviate way outside of accepted bounds and practice freely until someone busts them. If the DEA doesn’t have their number yet then filing a complaint w/ the state medical board is a public obligation to stop abuse and keep them from hurting others.
I wonder if his family will be charged a $3000 bullet fee to retrieve his body?