Cocaine Did Not Kill Ike Turner

Ike Turner

The ubiquitous headlines have been “Ike Turner Died of Cocaine Overdose” and the underlying articles have focused on his past recreational drug use. As usual the government and the media have twisted their presentation of illicit drug use to create a morality lesson.

Fatal overdoses from cocaine, as with other stimulants, are extremely rare. (See this post, “Drug War Myth #726,001: Cocaine Is Deadlier Than Aspirin.”) Still, cocaine greatly increases the heart rate and, similar to roller coasters, should not be used by those with weak hearts.

Also, drugs are often incorrectly blamed for suicides. Recreational drugs are a favored exit route because they are easier and more pleasurable than shooting oneself or throwing oneself off a precipice.

Less publicized than the killer cocaine angle was the fact that Turner was at an advanced stage of emphysema. According to his daughter he was on oxygen and completely spent.

He just couldn’t – he’d gone at the time of his death four or five days without doing anything, and if he’d done anything, it would have been so minimal. He was too weak from the emphysema to do anything. He’d go in the studio for a couple of minutes and play a couple of bars and say he had to go lay down.

Debilitated people often have heart attacks when using the commode because of the exertion. Do toilets get blamed? People often commit suicide by running a car in a garage. Do cars get blamed?

Turner was a lifelong musician who knew death was near and could no longer participate in his art. Close friends and family claim Turner was no longer using illicit drugs. Is it farfetched to believe Turner chose to end his life? His former drummer, Billy Ray, who was in Turner’s home when Turner was found dead said:

He was a man who knew he was going to pass away and if smoking bud or cocaine gave him solace in his final days, what difference would it be if he had a bottle of bourbon or Paxil?

Sources

1. Robert Arthur, You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (2007). LINK
2. Chelsea Carter, “Cocaine Killed Ike Turner, Coroner Says,” AP, 16 Jan. 2008. LINK
3. Denis Devine & Teri Figueroa, “Ike Turner Died of Cocaine Overdose,” North Country Times, 17 Jan. 2008.LINK

Getting Outed: Kutcher Fingered the Bush Twins

Two More Bushes Get High

In compiling the lists of successful people who used illegal drugs for my book I avoided mentioning those in the modern entertainment industry. The first reason is that the arts are one of the only areas in which the admission of drug use will not cripple a career so the revelations are endless. (For sample see LINK.) Second, artists, e.g. rock stars, tend to sensationalize their drug usage to appear wild, crazy, and tormented. This tends to reinforce the stereotypes rather than break them. Third, an artist is not considered to have a “real job” by much of our populace. For those reasons I usually don’t bother noting modern artists.

In this blog entry I am going to make an exception. As comedian and talk-show host, Bill Maher, pointed out in his 2002 NORML conference address, prominent drug users need to come out of the closet. As with the early gay movement, recreational drug users cannot overcome negative stereotypes when their successful members hide. Maher proceeded to out Harrison Ford and Ted Turner in his speech. While any outing is noteworthy, the most impressive outing I know of is Ashton Kutcher’s 2003 outing of the twin daughters of President George W. Bush, Jenna and Barbara.

Kitty Kelley, the queen of unauthorized biographies, has investigated influential people – Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan, Jackie Onassis, and the Royal Family – and yet she wrote that people were the most fearful to talk about the Bush clan. Add the fact that First Children are still given relatively gentle treatment by the media and it is unlikely someone was going to out young Jenna and Barbara. Enter Kutcher.

Kutcher not only outed the Bushettes, but he did it with flair. In the 2003 Rolling Stone cover story the former underwear model openly revealed his past enjoyment of marijuana. He also described attending a Los Angeles Nike party in the early 2000s in which Jenna and Barbara were in attendance. Despite the fact his friend lewdly commented, “I’d fucking nail the shit out of that bitch!,” in earshot of Secret Service agents, the Bush girls still inquired what Kutcher was doing after the party.

Everyone ended up at Kutcher’s afterwards. Kutcher revealed that the Bushes engaged in underage-drinking in his abode with the Secret Service right outside. At one point he went upstairs to his aforementioned friend’s room and in his words:

… I can smell the green wafting out under his door. I open the door, and there he is smoking out the Bush twins on his hookah.

As usual, when a celebrity says something “too” honest their public relations staff has to then attempt obfuscation. In this case, Kutcher’s spokeswoman said he was not contrite about the outing because “he didn’t say what was being smoked or who was doing the smoking.”Her statement is comical to anyone familiar with marijuana parlance. (For you east coasters, “smoking out” is the equivalent of “smoking up.”)

George W. Bush smoked marijuana and now his daughters have as well. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, except for Bush’s hypocrisy. Bush has a horrible record regarding marijuana tolerance. Despite promising in 2000 to respect states’ independence in determining marijuana policy, he has done the exact opposite, in fact the federal government under Bush has done everything in its power to prevent other countries from giving marijuana users greater liberty. LINK

Sources:

1. Gavin Edwards, “Ashton Kutcher,” Rolling Stone, 29 May 2003.
2. Kitty Kelley, The Family (2005).
3. Bill Maher, NORML 2002 Conference Address, 20 Apr. 2002. LINK (DOC file)
4. Karen Thomas, “Did the Bush twins inhale? Kutcher won’t say,” USAToday.com, 7 May 2003, ret. 15 Dec. 2007. LINK

Healthy Drug Users vs. Obese Narcophobes

Contrary to popular belief, America is not the fattest country in the world. Kuwait and six South Pacific island countries have managed to be more porcine. However, considering that almost three quarters of adult Americans are overweight according to their body mass index it is still ironic that the United States, that contains “The Land of the Fat,” violently and aggressively leads the global charge in punishing drug users everywhere for “their own health.”

Say No to Drugs

I would assert that, on average, people who eat at McDonald’s everyday will be substantially more unhealthy than a person who uses a drug such as marijuana, cocaine, or heroin, once a week. For those familiar with occasional drug users (the vast majority of drug users are not addicts) and fast food regulars this is not a radical proposition, however, I doubt a study to evaluate this hypothesis will be receiving grant money any time soon.

This irony of obese narcophobes damning drug usage was vividly visible when I attended the oldest American fair last month, Pennsylvania’s York County Fair. (Don’t miss the sign to the lower left.)

Say Yes to Fried Twinkies

Sources

1. “Land of the Fat,” Guardian.co.uk, 2 May 2002, ret. 10 Oct. 2007. LINK
2. Lauren Streib, “World’s Fattest Countries,” Forbes.com, 8 Feb. 2007, ret. 10 Oct. 2007. LINK