Ozzy Says He Now Believes Pot Leads To Other Addictions

MTV ^ | 07.08.2003 | Robert Mancini, with reporting by Gideon Yago

[presidio9]

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.

[eyespysomething]

What's funny, its like he has his fingers in his ears and is saying la la la la al allalalalallalala (like someone pointed out in an earlier post)

His only arguments are "You're all potheads" and "It affects other people around the user, so its supposed to be illegal"

Drivers who drive slow in the fast lane affect me everyday. Maybe we could make cars illegal.

When it comes to personal freedoms and liberty, these people are what will drag us down.

[lugsoul]

a) I don't have any job decreed by you.
b) You don't win anything. You lose, your rights, your tax dollars, and your liberty. As far as the discussion goes, every time you hit the post button you lose, because everyone can see that you don't know your facts and you are afraid to support your position.

[eyespysomething]

Is it failing? Do you have any statistics?

I see it kept crack from becoming a problem.

Hold on... I'll go get some since you seem to not be able.

[lugsoul]

Should heroine be legal? Are you talking about Wonder Woman? Or maybe Xena?

Or are you now just trying to equate pot and heroin, making the same kind of argument you repeatedly accuse others of making?

Either way, it doesn't matter to me. I'll give you a detailed answer to that question as soon as you respond to 607 and 631.

[toothless]

Or 811! lol.

[commonerX]

I don't believe he said legalizing pot will solve all those problems. Maybe making Alcohol illegal will. You shouldn't be drawing il-logical conclusions and making far stretched connections, if you can't connect the issue of pots illegality and alcohols legality

[presidio9]

I'm so glad all these people will know that Ozzy and you are in agreement.

Oh? Hey, why's that? Because he's a pathetic drug addidict who destroyed his mind and body with drugs? The only reason he is not a burden to society today is he made a fortune setting an example for people like you. Like you, he's an idiot, but he knows a thing or two about drugs.

[RockyMtnMan]

You didn't actually respond to my post.

And we can solve all of these problems by legalizing pot.

Is it more important to set a precedent for the fed to usurp liberties, a power not granted it by the constitution, or to have drug use marginally increase?

[lugsoul]

Presidio doesn't like personal freedoms or liberty. He tells us all so, over and over again.

And the entire "alcohol is legal, pot is illegal" bit is just a scheme he uses to try to bait people into having a completely different discussion, on his pet topic.

[presidio9]

or to have drug use marginally increase?

How do you KNOW this? Answer: You are BSing as usual...

[lugsoul]

Oh, he's already answered 811, sort of. See, marijuana was brand new at that time and no one had ever heard of it and no one ever used it, so it wasn't a problem. It wasn't until people started turning into bats that they had to outlaw it.

[laotzu]

"I would never "join the company" of a sad loser like Ozzy"

Having quoted him, you are accepting him as a reliable source. Dopers are reliable only when convenient, aren't they?

"I am berating Libertarians here, not fellow Conservatives"

As a whole, Libertarians are far more conservative than the more socialist leaning Republicans. However; the Republicans are a larger herd.

[toothless]

The question in 811 was how does someone's personal drug use effect others.

He just says 'haha drugie too stupid to know haha'

[lugsoul]

If you see no irony in this story, you truly are blind.

Read the list of stuff Jack was on. Read it again.

Read Ozzy's example for the "gateway drug" theory, then read it again.

Yep - that's exactly the kind of knowledge and logic we need behind our criminal justice system.

[presidio9]

Nope, I love personal freedoms as long as they don't harm society. Like I don't think people should be allowed to own plutonium for their own purposes. How 'bout you? A stinger missle?

And it is not I who always retreats back to alcohol, it is you. You people can't help yourselves. Two people did it in the last twenty or so posts when we started on to the "how do you define drugs" tangent.

[presidio9]

so jack never smoke pot then?

[RockyMtnMan]

Not any more than you, how do you KNOW that it will increase dramatically? The difference here is I'm not ignoring the main issue, the feds lack of authority in this matter, without an amendment to the constitution any law abridging rights of the people is itself unconstitutional.

[eyespysomething]

http://www.drugwardistortions.org/distortion1.htm

Distortion 1: If drugs were legalized there would be an explosion of drug use.

Incorrect. The available research, as affirmed by a recent Federal analysis of drug policy, indicates there would be little if any increase in use.

From 1972 to 1978, eleven states decriminalized marijuana possession (covering one-third of the US population) and 33 other states reduced punishment to probation with record erased after six months to one year. Yet, after 1978 marijuana use steadily declined for over a decade. Decriminalization did not increase marijuana use.

[National Research Council, "Informing America’s Policy On Illegal Drugs: What We Don’t Know Keeps Hurting Us" (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2001), pp. 192-193.]

The Netherlands decriminalized possession and allowed small scale sales of marijuana beginning in 1976. Yet, marijuana use in Holland is half the rate of use in the USA. It is also lower than the United Kingdom which had continued to treat possession as a crime. The UK is now moving toward decriminalization.

[Center for Drug Research, "Licit and Illicit Drug Use in The Netherlands 1997" (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands: CEDRO, 1999; Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, "Drug Policy in the Netherlands: Progress Report Sept. 1997-Sept. 1999 (The Hague, The Netherlands: Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Nov. 1999); US Dept. of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Household Survey on Drug Abuse 1998, 1999, and 2000 (Washington, DC: SAMHSA).

According to the Center for Drug Research in its report Licit and Illicit Drug Use in The Netherlands 1997, past-year cannabis use in The Netherlands is estimated at 4.5% for the entire population; past-month use is 2.5%. In the United States, according to NIDA’s National Household Survey on Drug Abuse for 2000, past-year cannabis use is 8.3% of the US population 12 and older, and past-month use is 4.8%.]

If there is an increase in the reported rate of drug use after the end of prohibition, it may be due to an increased willingness to admit to being a drug user. Currently, such an admission means admitting to breaking the law, which social scientists point out discourages honesty.

[National Research Council, "Informing America's Policy On Illegal Drugs" (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2001): "It is widely thought that nonresponse and inaccurate response may cause surveys such as the NHSDA and MTF to underestimate the prevalence of drug use in the surveyed populations (Caspar, 1992)." (p. 93)]

"Most cross-state comparisons in the United States (as well as in Australia; see McGeorge and Aitken, 1997) have found no significant differences in the prevalence of marijuana use in decriminalized and nondecriminalized states (e.g., Johnston et al., 1981; Single, 1989; DiNardo and Lemieux, 1992; Thies and Register, 1993). Even in the few studies that find an effect on prevalence, it is a weak one. For example, using pooled data from the National Household Survey of Drug Abuse for 1988, 1990 and 1991, Saffer and Chaloupka (1995) found that marijuana decriminalization increased past-year marijuana use by 6 to 7 percent and past-month use by 4 to 5 percent. Using Monitoring The Future survey data for 1982 and 1989, Chaloupka et al. (1998) estimated that decriminalizing marijuana in all states would raise the number of youths using marijuana in a given year by 4 to 5 percent compared with the number using it when marijuana use is criminalized in all states; however, they also found no relationship between decriminalization and past-month use or frequency of use."

Source: National Research Council, "Informing America’s Policy on Illegal Drugs" (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2001) pp. 192-193

According to the Center for Drug Research in its report Licit and Illicit Drug Use in The Netherlands 1997, past-year cannabis use in The Netherlands is estimated at 4.5% for the entire population; past-month use is 2.5%. In the United States, according to NIDA’s National Household Survey on Drug Abuse for 2000, past-year cannabis use is 8.3% of the US population 12 and older, and past-month use is 4.8%.

Sources: Center for Drug Research, "Licit and Illicit Drug Use in The Netherlands 1997" (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands: CEDRO, 1999; Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, "Drug Policy in the Netherlands: Progress Report Sept. 1997-Sept. 1999 (The Hague, The Netherlands: Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Nov. 1999); US Dept. of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Summary of Findings from the 2000 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (Washington, DC: SAMHSA).

"Still, several broad conclusions about misreporting have been drawn. At the most basic level, there appears to be consistent evidence that some respondents misreport their drug use behavior. More specifically, valid self-reporting of drug use appears to depend on the timing of the event and the social desirability of the drug. Recent use may be subject to higher rates of bias. Misreporting rates may be higher for stigmatized drugs, such as cocaine, than for marijuana. False negative reports seem to increase as drug use becomes increasingly stigmatized. The fraction of false negative reports appears to exceed the fraction of false positive reports, although these differences vary by cohorts. Finally, the validity rates can be affected by the data collection methodology. Surveys that can effectively ensure confidentiality and anonymity and that are conducted in noncoerced settings will tend to have relatively low misreporting rates." (NRC, "Informing America’s Policy on Illegal Drugs," pp. 99-100)

[toothless]

smoking pot = owning stinger missles. awesome.

[jayef]

The answer to that question is of no interest to me, and doesn't really inform the debate.