It ought to be clear by now, that the human body can be irretrievably harmed by the ingestion of narcotic substances.
That is the message of the deaths of Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse and now of Whitney Houston. Each of these performers died as a direct or indirect consequence of lives affected at sometime, and in a bad way, by drugs.
That they were top of the line show business personalities meant we had an open invitation into their private lives as well as their public persona, and their decline was visibly, therefore, a matter of public record.
Adorers of these singers, particularly the younger impressionable fans, ought therefore to be forewarned by these early and untimely deaths.
Untimely, because in each case, their parents have buried their children, in a cruel and avoidable reversal in nature brought about by the intervention through use of narcotic drugs alone or in combination with alcohol.
Alas, the message that narcotic drugs are bad for you often falls on less than fertile ground and there are still too many reports of some of our most vibrant, gifted young people falling victim to the evil manipulation of criminal entrepreneurs or to the blandishment of their curious peers,.
It is a tragic waste of the God-given potential of their lives that these exceptionally gifted people who have so much to live for, should be unable to heed the warnings of early danger highlighted in the mistakes of their peers gone before them.
We leave it to the psychologists and psychiatrists to divine the true reasons behind these multiple incidents of self-destruction emanating from a single profession which so glaringly exposes its practitioners to public scrutiny and approval.
But a sinister connection of even greater concern has emerged in this latest death, because so far only prescription drugs have been implicated along with intake of alcohol.
There needs also to be clearer and even more public awareness of the dangers of the addictive qualities of prescription drugs.
These substances, which have beneficial effects upon the human body, may also as a side effect, be seriously addictive and so the legitimate user may find himself or herself falling victim to an addiction as potentially destructive as if they had been breaking the law against the use of narcotic substances.
Some painkillers are in this group of legal drugs. They are capable of creating an addiction in the human body and, if taken in combination with alcohol, they can become a potent cause of heart stoppage and sudden death.
Illegal drug taking of any kind is a dangerous and deadly minefield, and only the foolish or stubbornly persistent, reckless of the consequences, would normally venture into such activity.
Our societies which project the glamorous lifestyles of the singers and actors before us must use the occasion of their untimely deaths to continue to take the initiative in reinforcing the message that illegal drugs are bad news.
Front Page news, but bad news.
