Was having a conversation tonight with my husband, a criminology professor, about celebrities who died tragically young due to possible complications from drug abuse: John Belushi, Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, River Phoenix, James Dean, Heath Ledger, and now, possibly, Michael Jackson. Substance abuse among at-risk youth in cities and suburbs is not new and is a pervasive social/criminal/medical problem; there are illegal drugs, homegrown drugs like meth, and prescription drugs available, with obvious negative consequences to individuals and society at large. Some teenagers have died doing stunts like sniffing the aerosol in forced air cans (like you use to clean your computer) to get high. At the other end of the spectrum are celebrities who abuse drugs because they can. Money and fame opens doors (and legs). Money allows easy access to prescription drugs. If one doctor won't prescribe them, for the right price another will. Mind candy. Handlers who say "no" are easily replaced by toadies who say "yes." Elvis consulted his own personal PDR before "mixing and matching," but in the end it didn't do him much good.

I said to my husband that celebrity abuse of prescription drugs probably deserves more formal study. My husband said that, starting next semester, for the first time he's going to talk more about prescription drug abuse in his classes, rather than just abuse of illegal substances.