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Yasmine Bleeth: My battle with drugs (or, how my nose almost fell off - WOD Alert!)
Yahoo! News ^ | 1.23.03

Posted on 01/24/2003 8:38:49 PM PST by mhking

Yasmine Bleeth: My battle with drugs
Thursday January 23, 2003

FOR Baywatch beauty Yasmine Bleeth, getting high on drugs brought her so low, it nearly killed her.

Now she's poured out her heart and revealed for the first time her horrific battle with cocaine, her rocky fight to win back her life and the love that is helping her.

Two years ago, the actress' drug habit was so bad, she didn't sleep for days at a time. She looked like death and on Sept. 12, 2001, she nearly drove herself into an early grave after losing control of her car on a Michigan road and careening into a median while high.

She spent a night in jail and, after a plea bargain, was sentenced to two years' probation and 100 hours of community service.

"For three years, people had been telling me that drugs would kill me," says Yasmine, 34, who was in the car with boyfriend Paul Cerrito, whom she married last August. "And this was my proof."

Bleeth says cocaine crept into her world so slowly, so easily, she didn't realize it until she was hooked.

When her three-year contract with Baywatch ended in 1997, she moved from L.A. to San Francisco and started her gig on Nash Bridges, opposite Don Johnson. Her romance with actor Richard Grieco had all but died, and she started drowning her pain with drugs.

"I just wanted to feel good again," she confides. "And I knew an easy way to get that feeling."

At first Yasmine just snorted the stuff socially on weekends with people she knew. Three months later, she made her first call to a dealer.

"It was like ordering Chinese food," she says. "I made one phone call and they delivered it to my front door."

Suddenly, she was in love again - with the white powder. "It was all I could think about," she admits. "When I was high, I didn't think about my problems. I had no pain. I wouldn't sleep for two or three days, sometimes even four or five."

By the end of 1999, her ghastly appearance started scaring her friends and family.

"I'm a fleshy girl, very curvy and round, but I lost my softness," she says. "I looked like an alien. My eyes were bulging out of my face. I was 110 pounds and a size 0. I looked dead."

In fact, she was slowly killing herself.

"I had an infection that had completely eaten out the inside of my nose," she tells Glamour magazine. "Essentially, I had gangrene in my nose."

The doctor put her on antibiotics and told her that another couple of months with this infection and it could have gone to her brain and killed her.

"That scared me," says Yasmine. "Until I started doing drugs again six weeks later."

In no time, the devastating drug cycle began again. Remarkably, she managed to drag herself to the set of the series Titans. But she was in no shape to film. The show's producer, Aaron Spelling, gave her time off to go to rehab at Promises in Malibu, Calif.

"I did drugs right up until I entered the program," says Yasmine. "I even did drugs in the Town Car on the way there."

During her December 2000 treatment, she met someone who made her feel better than the powder: Michigan bar owner Paul Cerrito, 32. After rehab, Yasmine invited Paul to stay with her in L.A.

"I thought that if ever I could handle doing drugs casually, now would be the time," she says. "But once I started doing coke, I lost control, and it took over my life again."

Yasmine was high when she crashed her car in Michigan a year and a half ago and nearly died. But now she sees that crash as a godsend. "I felt like some force had saved our lives," she says.

She knew she desperately needed to quit drugs - and finally, she did. Then this past August, just less than a year after her car crash, she and Paul tied the knot in Santa Barbara and honeymooned in Hawaii.

Yasmine is clean now, but it hasn't been easy. Her husband's love helps her over the rough patches.

"The feeling I have when I'm with Paul is better than how I felt on cocaine," she says.

But she still has to take one day at a time.

"Consciously trying to stay off drugs is now part of my life, and it always will be," she says.

"I've proven to myself that I can't have both drugs and love. Every day, I have to make the choice again. So far, I choose love."


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To: BADROTOFINGER
Did I say that?

Guess I'd better go to church.

Trajan88

61 posted on 01/25/2003 5:01:17 PM PST by Trajan88
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To: avenir
First, I need you to give me props for that area of agreement we had about "choice".
I didn't realize we had an agreement on "choice". "Just say no." Nancy Reagan
Second, I don't think cocaine has any cognition, either. More props.
Okay. How can I give a prop for what I agree with you on?
Third, I know that you understand what I'm trying to say about cocaine having powerful (pharmacological) properties in and of itself. And I understand what you are trying to say in that those properties are "inert" until a person—who has cognition—chooses to release them by ingesting cocaine.
I'm trying to understand what you're saying. Efficacy isn't "power" in the manner in which you implied.
I do believe cognition, informed by science and personal experience, tells me to avoid ingesting cocaine.
I wouldn't "ingest" (swallow) cocaine either. Love your LEO phraseology. Do you include inhale and inject with your expression "ingest"? I wouldn't recommend that either. In fact, I don't recommend cocaine use at all unless it is used under a doctor's guidance for specific ailments and purposes.
62 posted on 01/25/2003 5:01:58 PM PST by philman_36
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To: Eagle Eye
"Howcum the movies make street whores look like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman when they really like YB's mug shot? Crack whores are a nasty site.

That's a sad but true understatement! Here's 10 years in the life of these 2 drug addicted prostitutes.


63 posted on 01/25/2003 5:02:25 PM PST by NewsFlash
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To: Senator Pardek
[Society shows more tolerance for the burdens alcohol imposes on it than it does for drugs.]

Why?

That's its collective judgement. Legalization advocates haven't convinced society to accept their agenda, as the recent setbacks they've experienced at the ballot box amply demonstrate.

Tough luck.

64 posted on 01/25/2003 5:05:17 PM PST by Roscoe
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To: Senator Pardek; Roscoe
When will you admit ethanol users are drug users?
A-haaa! (/Eddie Murphy as old Jewish man in "Coming to America")

Alcohol ain't no drug 'cause it's legal.

65 posted on 01/25/2003 5:06:06 PM PST by philman_36
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To: philman_36
When will you admit ethanol users are drug users?

The usual Newspeak.

66 posted on 01/25/2003 5:08:12 PM PST by Roscoe
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To: NewsFlash

VOTE LIBERTARIAN!

67 posted on 01/25/2003 5:10:08 PM PST by Roscoe
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To: Roscoe
...as the recent setbacks they've experienced at the ballot box amply demonstrate.

I respect the will of the people in those states - do you respect the will of the people in states that want to legalize medical marijuana?

P.S. - anything other than a "yes" answer will = "I'm a hypocrite".

68 posted on 01/25/2003 5:12:58 PM PST by Senator Pardek
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To: Roscoe
The usual Newspeak.

Why? Ever talk to an ER doctor? They will all tell you booze is a most deadly drug - and none will deny it is a drug.

69 posted on 01/25/2003 5:14:43 PM PST by Senator Pardek
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To: Senator Pardek
I respect the will of the people in those states - do you respect the will of the people in states that want to legalize medical marijuana?

How many times are you gonna lie about that law?

Again:

The Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the United States Constitution mandates that federal law supersede state law where there is an outright conflict between such laws. See Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 (9 Wheat) U.S. 1, 210, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824); Free v. Bland, 369 U.S. 663, 666, 82 S. Ct. 1089, 8 L.Ed.2d 180 (1962); Industrial Truck Ass'n, Inc. v. Henry, 125 F.3d 1305, 1309 (9th Cir. 1997) (state law is preempted "where it is impossible to comply with both state and federal requirements, or where state law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purpose and objectives of Congress"). Recognizing this basic principle of constitutional law, defendants do not contend that Proposition 215 supersedes federal law, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a). Indeed, Proposition 215 on its face purports only to exempt certain patients and their primary caregivers from prosecution under certain California drug laws-it does not purport to exempt those patients and caregivers from the federal laws. One of the ballot arguments in favor of the initiative in fact states: "Proposition 215 allows patients to cultivate their own marijuana simply because federal law prevents the sale of marijuana and a state initiative cannot overrule those laws." Peron, 59 Cal.App.4th at 1393, 70 Cal.Rptr.2d 20 (quoting Ballot Pamphlet, Proposed Amends. to Cal. Const. with arguments to voters, Gen.Elec. (Nov. 5, 1996 p. 60)).

http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/drugreg/case01.htm


70 posted on 01/25/2003 5:20:25 PM PST by Roscoe
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To: Senator Pardek; Roscoe
Why are you responding to me?
Senator Pardek asked the question, not me.
Am I just an easy target?
71 posted on 01/25/2003 5:23:33 PM PST by philman_36
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To: philman_36
Senator Pardek asked the question, not me.

You parroted it.

72 posted on 01/25/2003 5:27:08 PM PST by Roscoe
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To: Roscoe
Are you insane or a coward?

Do you believe the people of California should decide if medical marijuana should be legal? Yes or no?

Do you believe the people of California should decide if partial birth abortion should be legal? Yes or no?

73 posted on 01/25/2003 5:29:22 PM PST by Senator Pardek
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To: Roscoe
The issue presented by these related lawsuits is whether defendants' admitted distribution of marijuana for use by seriously ill persons upon a physician's recommendation violates federal law, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a), and if so, whether defendants' conduct in this regard should be enjoined pursuant to the injunctive relief provisions of the federal Controlled Substances Act. See 21 U.S.C. § 882(a). This is the only issue before the Court. These lawsuits, for example, do not challenge the constitutionality of Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative, as a whole. Nor do they reflect a decision on the part of the federal government to seek to enjoin a local governmental agency from carrying out the humanitarian mandate envisioned by the citizens of this State when they voted to approve this law.
These cases also do not present the question of whether all conduct exempt from prosecution under the state drug laws by Proposition 215 violates federal law. For example, the Court is not deciding whether a seriously ill person who possesses marijuana for personal use upon a physician's recommendation is in violation of federal law. Rather, the sole issue here is whether defendants' conduct, which may be lawful under state law, may nevertheless violate federal law and can thus be enjoined.
Finding that there is a strong likelihood that defendants' conduct violates the Controlled Substances Act, the Court concludes that the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution requires that the Court enjoin further violations of the Act.
74 posted on 01/25/2003 5:30:24 PM PST by philman_36
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To: philman_36
Yes I look very different without my makeup but it doesn't change the color of my eyes. Maybe its just here but the picture on the left has blue eyes & the picture on the right has brown eyes.
75 posted on 01/25/2003 5:34:52 PM PST by Ditter
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To: Roscoe
In part...
CONCLUSION
Because of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, the only issue before the Court is whether defendants' conduct violates federal law. The Court concludes that the federal government has established that it is likely that it does. As these lawsuits are brought to enforce a statute, namely, the Controlled Substances Act, irreparable harm is presumed and the injunction must be granted.
Once again, however, the Court must caution as to what this decision does not do. The Court has not declared Proposition 215 unconstitutional. Nor has it enjoined the possession of marijuana by a seriously ill patient for the patient's personal medical use upon a physician's recommendation. Nor has the Court foreclosed the possibility of a medical necessity or constitutional defense in any proceeding in which it is alleged a defendant has violated the injunction issued herein.

I'm likely to barf if you throw that manure up again!

76 posted on 01/25/2003 5:36:04 PM PST by philman_36
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To: Senator Pardek
Do you believe the people of California should decide if medical marijuana should be legal?

They made their decision, which was that certain state sanctions should be lifted, and that federal law would be unaffected by their vote.

The Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the United States Constitution mandates that federal law supersede state law where there is an outright conflict between such laws. See Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 (9 Wheat) U.S. 1, 210, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824); Free v. Bland, 369 U.S. 663, 666, 82 S. Ct. 1089, 8 L.Ed.2d 180 (1962); Industrial Truck Ass'n, Inc. v. Henry, 125 F.3d 1305, 1309 (9th Cir. 1997) (state law is preempted "where it is impossible to comply with both state and federal requirements, or where state law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purpose and objectives of Congress"). Recognizing this basic principle of constitutional law, defendants do not contend that Proposition 215 supersedes federal law, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a). Indeed, Proposition 215 on its face purports only to exempt certain patients and their primary caregivers from prosecution under certain California drug laws-it does not purport to exempt those patients and caregivers from the federal laws. One of the ballot arguments in favor of the initiative in fact states: "Proposition 215 allows patients to cultivate their own marijuana simply because federal law prevents the sale of marijuana and a state initiative cannot overrule those laws." Peron, 59 Cal.App.4th at 1393, 70 Cal.Rptr.2d 20 (quoting Ballot Pamphlet, Proposed Amends. to Cal. Const. with arguments to voters, Gen.Elec. (Nov. 5, 1996 p. 60)). http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/drugreg/case01.htm

Quit lying about the law.

77 posted on 01/25/2003 5:37:53 PM PST by Roscoe
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To: Ditter
Yes I look very different without my makeup...
Most women do, as does YB, obviously.
...but it doesn't change the color of my eyes.
Colored contacts could do that.
78 posted on 01/25/2003 5:38:16 PM PST by philman_36
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To: philman_36
Finding that there is a strong likelihood that defendants' conduct violates the Controlled Substances Act, the Court concludes that the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution requires that the Court enjoin further violations of the Act.

Thanks for shooting yourself in the foot.

79 posted on 01/25/2003 5:39:31 PM PST by Roscoe
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To: mhking
"I thought that if ever I could handle doing drugs casually, now would be the time," she says. "But once I started doing coke, I lost control, and it took over my life again."

I do heroin casually like a once a year for celebration purposes around the holidays or my birthday. I know what yasmeen is talking about it's like the best orgasm you've had in your life times 10 and it lasts a very long time. I've never tried coke so I don't know how good that is. You haven't lived until you've done heroin. I don't recommend casual drug use for people easily addicted to anything...food (overweight), alcohol, ciggies, etc. I mean if you can get hooked on a pack and a half of cigarettes a day it's a good sign that you shouldn't get into drugs because you're just too weak to handle it.

80 posted on 01/25/2003 5:39:42 PM PST by snowstorm12
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