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.

[presidio9]

Care to respond to post 626? Thank you!

See post 901 idiot.

bump

[mvpel]

Yes but alcohol was legal before prohibition, and was made so again by it's repeal. Pot has never been legal.

Your facts are wrong. Prior to 1914 or so when the temperance movement hit it big, not only marijuana, but heroin, opium, cocaine, and other drugs were legal and freely available to anyone who could afford the low price. A bottle of Coca-Cola used to have the equivalent of about a line worth cocaine in it.

[toothless]

"All the lurkers are gonna see is that a big time drug user, Ozzy says that pot leads to more serious addiction."

If you think that reading a headline is going to change anybodys feelings, you have a low level of respect for the brains of freepers.

[presidio9]

With every lurker that read the headline of this thread, from a big time drug user that pot leads to more serious addiction.

Exaclty. A few well organized drug users think they can shut up the voice of reason if they keep asking the same questions over and over again. Well, they picked the wrong thread for it here.

[Xenalyte]

Your post 901 is purely anecdotal. So far, you have yet to provide any statistics or evidence backing up your view. All you do is call us names.

Way to win converts.

[MrLeRoy]

They believe in putting people in jail for private behavior to protect 'society'. Hardly a conservitive position.

Quite right. That is not a conservative position.

That is not where the conflict occurs. It is a dispute about whether it is "private behavior".

A guy smokes a bowl in his living room---how is that not private behavior?

It is private behavior.

Then where is the non-private behavior basis for opposing drug relegalization?

[Xenalyte]

I thought drug use took away our organizing ability.

And the reason we keep asking the questions is that you refuse to answer them - which seems to be a favorite Drug Warrior tactic. At least we the reprehensible stand up and answer.

[mvpel]

Yeah, that was a funny movie, but stop trying to change the subject. You are losing this battle because: (A) You have yet to make a valid point and (B) we want you to keep bumping this silly article from MTV. Thanks for being dumb enough to comply.

Care to respond to post 626? Thanks!

[mvpel]

Yeah, that was a funny movie, but stop trying to change the subject. You are losing this battle because: (A) You have yet to make a valid point and (B) we want you to keep bumping this silly article from MTV. Thanks for being dumb enough to comply.

Care to respond to post 626? Thanks!

[presidio9]

Yep, and under your hero Ozzy's logic, coffee, alcohol, stimulant drinks and a whole raft of prescription drugs should also be illegal. Oh, yeah, you are really accomplishing something.

' Riiiiight... and legalizing pot will solve all the problems caused by alcohol or designer drugs.

bump

[toothless]

A man is not condemed by what goes into his mouth but by what comes out of it.

Matthew 15:11

[eyespysomething]

http://www.rand.org/hot/press.02/gateway.html

RAND Study Casts Doubt on Claims That Marijuana Acts as "Gateway" to the Use of Cocaine and Heroin

snip=


The RAND study and a series of commentaries about the report are published in the December edition of the British journal Addiction, a peer-reviewed scientific publication.

"The people who are predisposed to use drugs and have the opportunity to use drugs are more likely than others to use both marijuana and harder drugs," Morral said. "Marijuana typically comes first because it is more available. Once we incorporated these facts into our mathematical model of adolescent drug use, we could explain all of the drug use associations that have been cited as evidence of marijuana's gateway effect."

"This is a very important study with broad implications for marijuana control policy," said Charles R. Schuster, a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and now director of the Addiction Research Institute at Wayne State University. "I can only hope that it will be read with objectivity and evaluated on its scientific merits, not reflexively rejected because it violates most policy makers' beliefs."

RAND researchers say it is unlikely that any study will be conducted that definitively settles the marijuana gateway debate. But the authors say their study should raise questions about the legitimacy of basing national drug policy decisions on the assumption that one of the harmful effects of marijuana use is the increased risk of using more dangerous drugs.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

Why don't you just go ahead and tell all the FReepers that you think they are just sheep whose minds will be influenced on this issues by a headline stating Ozzy's view?

Stating your silly claim just once will do.

What they will be influenced by is the obvious logic that a man who has lived and experienced what he is talking about, is credible.

[lugsoul]

The voice of reason. Presidio, Axel and Ozzy.

[Xenalyte]

Dude, that is TOO funny.

[mvpel]

So why do you keep talking about alcohol. Legalizing pot will not change the damage caused by alohol.

Nobody has said that, as far as I know. What we have said is that legalizing pot will change the damage caused by the War on Some Drugs.

Care to respond to post 626?

[MrLeRoy]

"With every lurker that read the headline of this thread, from a big time drug user that pot leads to more serious addiction."

Exaclty.

Lurkers that read only headlines are probably already full of ideas as nutty as the "gateway theory"---but I feel confident most lurkers read far enough into articles to have learned the truth here.

[mvpel]

Here's a good article on the timetable of marijuana prohibition and the history of narcotics criminalization in the US:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/vlr/vlrtoc.htm

[AxelPaulsenJr]

How nice what Rand thinks. I am reading and believing what a man who has actually experienced what he is talking about.