Posted on 07/08/2003 2:31:17 PM PDT by 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.
Good for Ozzy. I'm glad he's able to look at things with a (finally) correct perspective. He is the best example of what happens to you when you do drugs and drink. And he's willing to admit that.
Ozzy's continual abuse of substances doesn't qualify him as an expert in its societal dynamics any more than your continual abuse of logic and reason qualify you as an expert in their proper application in rhetoric.
Only in the same way they win elections. They "attempt" to tear you a new one. You're doing fine.
Those are 'shrooms, right? Nah, never got into 'shrooms, except on my steak with 'shrooms and onions....
FMCDH
From there, you move up to "Jackboot", "Statist", "Police Statist" and finally "Nazi". And then, if you really make sense, they try to get you banned. Care to go for bonus?
Try again.
MYTH: MARIJUANA KILLS BRAIN CELLS. Used over time, marijuana permanently alters brain structure and function, causing memory loss, cognitive impairment, personality deterioration, and reduced productivity.
FACT: None of the medical tests currently used to detect brain damage in humans have found harm from marijuana, even from long term high-dose use. An early study reported brain damage in rhesus monkeys after six months exposure to high concentrations of marijuana smoke. In a recent, more carefully conducted study, researchers found no evidence of brain abnormality in monkeys that were forced to inhale the equivalent of four to five marijuana cigarettes every day for a year. The claim that marijuana kills brain cells is based on a speculative report dating back a quarter of a century that has never been supported by any scientific study.
Lynn Zimmer and John Morgan. Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts: A Review of the Scientific Evidence, (New York: The Lindesmith Center, 1997).
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