Response to a reflection on Amy Winehouse

British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse died four days ago at the age of 27. She had been struggling with drug and alcohol addiction for some time. The star's troubles were well-known to the public, due to the the volume of media and paparazzi coverage.

The author of an opinion piece recently published on Yahoo! News presented a thought-provoking question -- a question, in fact, that was also the title of the piece: "Remembering Amy Winehouse: Will addiction overshadow talent?"

Well, will it?

I can't say that I know very much about Amy Winehouse, having never listened to her music. Still, I can appreciate the question. To me, it opens up an even wider field of inquiry -- one that deals with general societal attitudes and norms regarding drug and alcohol addictions.

Few of us would seriously deny that there is a stigma toward substance abuse in our society. And, of course, their should be; but I would venture to say that equally few of us tend to recognize the concurrent stigma toward substance abusers.

It's not my intention to excuse people who abuse drugs and alcohol. One must make the choice to start using (except, perhaps, in the cases of infants who are born with the consequences of their parents' addictions), and people must want to change their lives. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that while this is certainly possible, it's not anywhere near as simple as we would have it.

Dr. Gabor Maté, in his book "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction," writes about Dr. William Stewart Halsted, a major pioneer of modern surgery. Halsted's time predates the War on Drugs, which took off in the early part of the 20th century. Halsted, according to Maté, "was an opiate addict for over forty years." During those forty years, "he did stellar and innovative work at Johns Hopkins University, where he was one of the four founding physicians."

Please don't misunderstand me: Neither I nor Dr. Maté are suggesting that Dr. Halsted was able to do such great work because of his addiction. That's not the point. Rather, this example shows that drug addicts can make meaningful contributions to society if they are not shunned, stigmatized and maligned.

What I wonder is this: How many people knew about Dr. Halsted's addiction? Surely it could not have been the subject of media frenzy. Contrast this with Amy Winehouse and others, whose forays into substance abuse and/or struggles with addiction are clearly in the public eye, and whose addictions come to define who they are. Let's face it: Once addictions become publicized, people don't forget. Whatever contributions stars make to the entertainment industry (or elsewhere, for that matter), it seems they are doomed to be the butt of crude humor, criticism, and derogatory slurs ("junkie," "drunk," etc).

We don't want to hold or encourage positive or lax attitudes toward substance abuse, and I do hope that Winehouse's unfortunate death serves as a warning to young people about the very real dangers of drugs and alcohol. At the same time, we shouldn't foster attitudes that label those who struggle with addictions unredeemably evil and/or "messed up." This can only exacerbate and keep them trapped in the troublesome behaviors into which they have fallen.

Hard to imagine anything more counterproductive than that, isn't it?

To read the Yahoo! News opinion piece, click here.

What are the most commonly abused drugs?

For a chart of commonly abused drugs put together by NIDA, the National Institute On Drug Abuse, click here.

Prescription drugs kill far more people than street drugs

An article in the New York Times on June 14, 2008 states that a recent study by the Florida Medical Examiners found that the number of people killed by presciption drugs was three times the number killed by street drugs. Here is a snippet from the times article:

From “Scarface” to “Miami Vice,” Florida’s drug problem has been portrayed as the story of a single narcotic: cocaine. But for Floridians, prescription drugs are increasingly a far more lethal habit.

An analysis of autopsies in 2007 released this week by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined.

Law enforcement officials said that the shift toward prescription-drug abuse, which began here about eight years ago, showed no sign of letting up and that the state must do more to control it.

“You have health care providers involved, you have doctor shoppers, and then there are crimes like robbing drug shipments,” said Jeff Beasley, a drug intelligence inspector for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which co-sponsored the study. “There is a multitude of ways to get these drugs, and that’s what makes things complicated.”

The report’s findings track with similar studies by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which has found that roughly seven million Americans are abusing prescription drugs. If accurate, that would be an increase of 80 percent in six years and more than the total abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, Ecstasy and inhalants.

The Florida report analyzed 168,900 deaths statewide. Cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines caused 989 deaths, it found, while legal opioids — strong painkillers in brand-name drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin — caused 2,328.

It is ironic that with all the money the United States has spent on "the war on drugs" over the last 4o years, the biggest killers are perfectly legal in the U.S.: tobacco, alcohol, and prescription drugs. The number of deaths caused by "legal drugs" is far greater than what are caused by illegal drugs. About 600,000 people a year are killed by tobacco, alcohol, and prescription drugs as compared to 30,000 by street drugs.

Here at GCASA we work to reduce the demand for legal and illegal drugs by giving people accurate information and helping them to make healthy choices. We have seen a huge increase in our treatment of people addicted to opiates to the extent that we have developed a whole new opiate addiction treatment program. For more information you can ask any GCASA counselor or call John Bennett, GCASA's Director of Treatment, at 585-815-1849, or Maryann Bowman, GCASA's Director of Prevention, at 585-815-1877 or email John at jbennett@gcasa.org, or Maryann at mbowman@gcasa.org.. You can reach me, David Markham, Executive Director, at 585-815-1800 or dmarkham@gcasa.org.

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Faces of Meth

Faces of Meth before and after. Video lasts about 2:13.