Ozzy Says He Now Believes Pot Leads To Other Addictions

Ozzy Osbourne may have weathered the lowest lows that drug addiction has to offer, but the news that his son Jack was seeking treatment for substance abuse taught him a lesson that his own decades of addiction never did.

"I used to think they should legalize pot, but you know what? They should ban the lot," Osbourne told MTV News, addressing Jack's battle for the first time. "One thing leads to another. Coffee leads to Red Bull, Red Bull leads to crank.

"When I found out the full depth of him getting into OxyContin, which is like hillbilly heroin, I was shocked and stunned," Osbourne continued. "The thing that's amazing was how rapidly he went from smoking pot to doing hillbilly heroin."

Ozzy's son entered a California rehabilitation facility in April to battle what was later revealed to be an addiction to the prescription painkiller OxyContin (see "Jack Osbourne Reveals He Was Addicted To Painkiller OxyContin"). Jack also said that he was drinking and using a variety of substances — including Vicodin, Valium, Xanax, Dilaudid, Lorcet, Lortab, Percocet and marijuana — before his trip to rehab (see "Rehab Helps Jack Osbourne Get To Root Of Addiction Problems").

Jack's laundry list of controlled substances made his father painfully aware of just how readily available drugs are. "When I started doing drugs years ago, they were hard to get, but today it's everywhere," Osbourne said. "It's not just America. It's not just California. It's not just Beverly Hills. It's not just downtown New York. It's not just London. It's all over the world" (see "All About OxyContin, The Pills Known As 'Killers' ").

This relatively easy access to allegedly "controlled" substances is especially hard for Ozzy to swallow given his firsthand experience with the damage that drugs can do.

"I'm 55 years old, and I didn't get off scot-free," Osbourne explained. "I have to take medication for the rest of my life because I've done so much neurological damage to my body," Osbourne said.

We'll have much more from our interviews with Ozzy and Jack in an "MTV News Now" special report, premiering Tuesday at 11 p.m. ET/PT (Jack's complete interview will appear on MTVNews.com when the show premieres). The show will be followed the next day by a repeat of MTV News' "True Life: I'm Hooked on OxyContin" at 6:30 p.m.

"Were I you, I'd watch it with the characterizations. Some more prickly than I might take it amiss."

Like I care?

"Do you seriously maintain that coffee leads to Red Bull, which leads to crank? I used to drink a pot of coffee a day when I was teaching. I have yet to drink a Red Bull, let alone do the crank."

Yes. I've seen the devastating results of addiction to Red Bull.

"Do you abstain from all caffeine for fear of becoming a crankhead?"

Yes. I've given up caffeine, and broken my addiction.

Most students unable to write respectably Fri Jul 11, 5:53 AM ET Add Top Stories - USA TODAY to My Yahoo!

Greg Toppo USA TODAY

You wake up one morning and there are clouds on your breakfast plate. You look out the window and see stars littering the streets. Write a story, called ''The Very Unusual Day,'' about what happens. You have 25 minutes.

Faced with that task, fewer than one in five fourth-graders could write a respectable story, said a study released Thursday by the federal government.

Though U.S. students' writing has improved modestly in the past four years, few write well: Only one in four 12th-graders and fewer than one in three fourth- and eighth-graders can write stories or essays proficiently, said the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as ''the nation's report card.''

The trend mirrors the scores of NAEP math, reading and history tests in the past several years, in which students posted modest gains but demonstrated fairly low skills overall.

The test usually is administered every four years in a variety of subjects. The last time students took the writing test, slightly fewer rated ''proficient,'' or showing solid academic performance. The 2002 test also shows that a few more students scored ''basic'' or better, meaning they were at least able to make a point in writing.

Education Secretary Rod Paige noted that schools ''have to find creative ways to encourage our high school seniors,'' whose results haven't changed since 1998. Although the highest-scoring seniors did noticeably better than in 1998, the lowest scorers scored much lower.

The scores also showed that girls wrote better than boys at every grade level.

There were a few bright spots: In both fourth and eighth grade, low-income students scored higher, on average, than in 1998; 12th-graders scored about the same. In all three grades, however, the gaps in performance between low-income students and others ''remained substantial.''

Also, younger black and Hispanic students' average scores rose in 2002; those of minority 12th-graders either dropped or remained unchanged.

Education expert Gerald Bracey of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., said the test's proficiency levels have been rejected by many researchers as setting expectations that are too high. He also criticizes the way standardized writing tests are graded. They are ''scored by $7-an-hour temps who spend, at most, 30 seconds on an essay,'' he said.

Sad reading indeed.

I watched this thread from the beginging but did not post much because I was one of the few that saw through your game. Now that it is not on the main page and you have lost the thrill of seeing that headline, I feel free to post. I kept track of your posts along the way.

I didn't spend as much time cutting and pasting as you did posting. The fact that I take time to create a meaningful post instead of jumping threads and posting one liners, lends me to think you may need the ritalin, not me.

My main point that still has never been addressed, is listed in post 414. Let me know if you have a response to it yet.

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