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.

[toothless]

1000!

[toothless]

"1000!"

CRAP!

[MrLeRoy]

What truth is that?

This one: Recent studies by the RAND Corporation, and by economist Steven Pudney of the University of Leicester, have deflated the "gateway theory."

[commonerX]

We don't throw kids in jail for smoking pot. We throw the adults who sell them the drugs. Same as statutory rape.


You can relate statutory rape to parents sell kids drugs, but you don't see the relationship with the illegality/legality of alcohol and drugs.

HUMMM next

[A CA Guy]

I agree, being for illegal drugs requires that person to be quite full of your statement!

[MrLeRoy]

The vast majority of FR lurkers read only the headline.

Provide evidence for your claim.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

LOL, and thank you!

[toothless]

NP mister 'pot has always been illegal.'

lol.

[A CA Guy]

You'll just have to settle for depression and schizophrenia then.
http://www.jhunewsletter.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/11/3e95e7d8a6ea7

[mvpel]

What more is there to say if one refuses to admit or acknowledge the damage that was done by Prohibition and is currently being done by the War on Some Drugs?

That's the bottom line.

[toothless]

Prohibition of MJ is not prohibition, stupid druugie hippy.

[MrLeRoy]

1000!

Woo-hoo!

[lugsoul]

I know you find facts to be inconvenient, but I'll let the last word on this one come from the government you worship:

Police arrest more Americans per year on marijuana charges than the total number of arrestees for all violent crimes combined, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

REFERENCE: Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2001. Uniform Crime Report: Crime in the United States, 2000. Table 29: Total estimated arrests in the United States, 2000. U.S. Department of Justice: Washington, DC.

Marijuana violations constitute the fifth most common criminal offense in the United States.

REFERENCE: Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2000. Drugs and Crime Facts. Table: Estimated totals of top 7 arrest offenses, United States, 1999. U.S. Department of Justice: Washington, DC.

More than 734,000 individuals were arrested on marijuana charges in 2000. Eighty-eight percent of those arrested were charged with marijuana possession only.

REFERENCE: Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2001. Uniform Crime Report Crime in the United States, 2000. Table: Arrest for Drug Abuse Violations. U.S. Department of Justice: Washington, DC.

Got any more lies to post?

[MrLeRoy]

You'll just have to settle for depression and schizophrenia then. http://www.jhunewsletter.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/11/3e95e7d8a6ea7

<yawn> More "correlation proves causation" BS.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

bttt

[toothless]

LALALALALA

[Xenalyte]

Hey now, don't you be dragging Peter into it! (Uh, heh heh, heh heh . . . heh heh, heh heh . . . I said "Peter.")

[Xenalyte]

What did you put in your Red Bull this morning? Do you accuse me of making a false god of border security, since that's at least as important to me?

[commonerX]

Looks like you are the lucky 1000 poster you win.

[MrLeRoy]

Paul B Birkett, Clinical Lecturer, Longley Centre
British Medical Journal, 27 November 2002

[...] those with schizophrenia may have had abnormalities detectable in childhood (1) and therefore predating any cannabis use. There is another difficulty with the proposition that cannabis use causes some cases of schizophrenia; as Rey and Tennant (2) point out, we lack the crucial epidemiological evidence demonstrating the expected increase in incidence of schizophrenia within populations exposed to high levels of cannabis. It is therefore important to carefully consider alternative explanations for the association.

Varma and Sharma (3) found an increased prevalence of cannabis use disorder in the first-degree relatives of schizophrenic probands. Working from the other direction, McGuire et al (4) found that within a sample of patients admitted with acute psychosis, the morbid risk of schizophrenia was increased for the relatives of probands who had tested positive for cannabis on urinary screening. These findings are consistent with the notion of a common genetic risk factor for cannabis abuse and schizophrenia. [...]

1. Jones P, Rodgers B, Murray R, Marmot M. Child development risk factors for adult schizophrenia in the British 1946 birth cohort. Lancet 1994;344(8934):1398-402.

2. Rey JM, Tennant CC. Cannabis and mental health. British Medical Journal Clinical Research Ed. 2002;325:1183-4.

3. Varma SL, Sharma I. Psychiatric morbidity in the first-degree relatives of schizophrenic patients. British Journal of Psychiatry 1993;162:672-8.

4. McGuire PK, Jones P, Harvey I, Williams M, McGuffin P, Murray RM. Morbid risk of schizophrenia for relatives of patients with cannabis- associated psychosis. Schizophrenia Research 1995;15(3):277-81.