There is a Citibank Visa card commercial in circulation right now that features an olympic skier in the Nordic Combined talking about his tastes in music. He says he prefers listening to hip-hop while working out, classical music while skiing cross-country, and "something special" when on the ski jump. He uses his Citibank visa card to download his music and the scene cuts to him headed down the ski ramp, with Jimi Hendrix singing "...excuse me while I kiss the sky" as the skier reaches for the apex of his jump. Pretty nice work, a striking example of music matching the activity.
As I recalled it, Jimi Hendrix died at age twenty-seven, and drugs were involved. I thought I recalled it was a heroin overdose, and quickly linked Hendrix to the recently deceased Philip Seymour Hoffman. Another celebrity I lumped in with Hendrix was Janis Joplin. She. too died at age 27, and in her case it was also a heroin overdose, I thought. When I checked, I learned that Hendrix had taken nine doses at once of a barbiturate commonly used as a sleeping medication. This meant that his death was drug-related, but not heroin-related. Janis Joplin did indeed die of a heroin overdose.
Newspaper articles have popped up about the "heroin epidemic," or more concisely, "the opioid epidemic." Prescription opioids like Percocet, Oxycontin and Vicodin are more common among the affluent, with heroin costing a fraction of what it costs to obtain illicit prescription drugs. There is no question that opioid use is increasing at a faster pace than other forms of drug use. So are deaths from overdose. Simply put, the reason for this is heroin users often have little indication of the strength of what they have purchased, or the even more dangerous drugs it may be laced with. A strange thing happens when enforcement is tightened up on policing prescription drugs. The reduction in deaths related to abuse of prescription drugs is more than made up for by more deaths due to heroin use.
But what is it about drug use that attracts so many of the highly-talented actors, musicians and even comedians (see John Belushi and Lenny Bruce--both of whom died overdosing on heroin or heroin-related substances--speedballs and morphine) to serious drug abuse? Do you suppose if we knew we might save them? Is it about substituting something for the rush of the spotlight? It's sort of a pat answer and doesn't allow for the many thousands who don't resort to heroin, etc. Are they people with an inner flaw of some sort that is exposed by the excessive attention, affection and adulation, nay adoration and that comes their way all at once?
What about the ups and downs that accompany their initial drug use? Isn't the aftermath just more of the same brutal return to earth they experienced when the show was over? Wouldn't that tell them their drug use was another dead end? And, having seen so many others perish by way of a drug overdose, don't they get it? These are exceptional people in so many ways, a higher dose of that invulnerability of youth probably comes with it. It can so quickly turn to addiction, maybe they never have a chance against it. Philip Seymour Hoffman certainly knew it--he had made it back from the precipice once before, hadn't he? He beat the odds and "got clean" at 22 years of age, but still succumbed.
In my view, we are none of us perfect or invulnerable, and even the most talented among us fall victim. We hear more about these talented people, but they are a tiny fraction of those who lose their lives this way. I have to admit I have listened to the proponents of legalization, noting that we have had little success with the "war on drugs." As I think about these deaths, there's not much of an argument here for legalizing it all, is there?
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