Jackson's death puts focus on medications

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By Gabriella Boston and Stephanie Green

Reports that Michael Jackson had become heavily and habitually overmedicated has focused new attention on the widespread abuse of prescription drugs nationwide.

Nowhere, perhaps, is the problem more acute than in the star culture of Hollywood, where there is no shortage of Dr. Feelgoods willing to act as enablers of celebrity dependence on an array of prescription drugs, especially painkillers and anti-depressants.

"When a very nice celebrity comes into your office with a lot of charm and clout and asks for a painkiller, it's very difficult to say no," says Dr. Svetlana Kogan, an internist with practices in Manhattan and Queens, who did not treat Mr. Jackson.

Dr. Kogan said that movie stars and performers turn to the medicine cabinet for varied reasons, including relief from the pain caused by injuries suffered on stage or film sets and for respite from the stress and anxiety associated with life in a fishbowl.

Mr. Jackson himself is reported to have turned to painkillers as long ago as 1984 for relief from painful burns on his scalp incurred when his hair caught fire during the shooting of a Pepsi commercial in Los Angeles.

"I would not be surprised if the toxicology report tells us [Mr. Jackson] was highly medicated," says Dr. Kogan. "He seemed to be a highly stressed individual."

Brian Oxman, a spokesman for the Jackson family, told CNN last week that the Jacksons had been gravely concerned "for months and months" about the music superstar's reliance on drugs and doctors, saying that his death was not "unexpected."

"If you think the case of Anna Nicole Smith was an abuse, this was nothing in comparison," Mr. Oxman, a lawyer, said on CNN on the evening of Mr. Jackson's death.

Dr. Deepak Chopra, the famed medical doctor and spiritualist, was a friend of Mr. Jackson's until, he has said, their relationship became strained in 2005 when he declined to write his friend a prescription for painkillers the star said he needed.