Fri, Sep 5, 2008
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MORRIS O'KELLY: Dear Whitney: Is Crack STILL Wack?
(March 29, 2005)
I’m willing to admit, I’m a flawed person. I am not the most sympathetic of individuals. I know this about myself and have made my peace with it. I have a temper and at times lose it. Yes, I have a few faults that I’m dealing with and working to improve on them. But, I can say that I don’t do drugs and don’t participate in illegal activity.
Meaning …
What I’m about to say about Whitney Houston will probably offend some of you and probably offend all of you who profess to be die-hard fans. Let’s put all our cards on the table, right here, right now. Some of you are not going to be happy with me today. Let’s just come to that level of understanding and move forward accordingly.
Whitney Houston is back in rehab.
‘Back?’
I’m sorry, but I’m not really sure we can even say she’s ‘back.’ Her first stay was all of five days. You can’t get over a cold in five days, much less any serious substance abuse addiction. The saying is that it takes 21 days to break a habit. With that in mind, I’m guessing that it if you’re trying kick cocaine, marijuana and prescription drugs (as she admitted using to Diane Sawyer)…you might need more than a ‘business’ week of five days. You should start thinking about having your mail forwarded to the Betty Ford people…forever. That’s a pretty formidable ‘triple-threat’ you’re up against.
But let’s stop right there.
The widely viewed interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer in 2002 (two years prior) was a public admission of drug ‘abuse.’ Note, I didn’t say drug ‘use,’ but ‘abuse.’ Remember, that was when a defiant Whitney ‘reassured’ us that she never used crack.
"I make too much [money] for me to ever smoke crack. Crack is wack." - Whitney Houston (2002)
Whew, that was a load off my mind. If SHE said she never used crack, then I guess that’s good enough for me! It’s not like drug addicts ever lie about their addiction(s) do they? I mean, as long as she uses every OTHER type of drug available EXCEPT crack, then she can still check the ‘non-addict’ box in any questionnaire, right?
Yes Whitney, that was both very informative and reassuring. Thanks for that bit of minutia. It ‘informed’ me and ‘reassured’ me that you were a drug addict, even then. How a person’s level of income has any bearing on what drug is ‘beneath’ him/her is beyond me. I didn’t know there was a ‘class struggle’ amongst addicts. Since when did the baseheads look down on crackheads, or weedheads turn their nose up at crackheads?
Did I miss something?
Yes, as far as drug addicts go, Whitney had ‘standards.’ Right, right…I know. Whitney would have us believe she wasn’t an addict, even then. If your daily routine includes marijuana, cocaine and prescription drugs (which are all illegal I might add) you’re probably an addict. It’s a pretty safe bet. If you can speak at length on the various and sundry controlled substances you still partake in regularly, odds are, you’re an addict and have been for quite some time. I’m neither a doctor, nor am I a pharmacist…but I know crackheads when I see them. And no, I don’t want to hear from the myopic fans arguing that Whitney was never a crack-user. Let’s check the scorecard.
In 2000, two years prior to the aforementioned Diane Sawyer interview, Whitney was charged with trying to conceal 15 grams of marijuana in the form of “3 half-smoked joints” at a Houston airport.
Despite these facts, the charges were dismissed “when it was found that Houston did not need treatment for substance abuse.”
Huh? Are you kidding me?
If you are stupid enough…(and yes I mean stupid in the dictionary definition of the word)…enough to try to sneak marijuana past airport security in the form of half-blazed joints; you have a drug problem. If you can’t wait 2 hours to fly from Houston (Whitney lives in a suburb of Atlanta, GA) before you blaze up…again…you have a drug problem. If you can’t manage to wait until you get back home and call your ‘primary’ drug dealer to help you out…you have a drug problem and it probably doesn’t only involve marijuana.
That was in 2000. The Diane Sawyer interview was in 2002.
Whitney Houston didn’t first hit rehab, or should I say, “stop by rehab” until about a year ago … 2004.
The woman admits to using cocaine, marijuana, prescription drugs, caught at the airport with 3 joints and willingly married Bobby Brown and DIDN’T think she had a drug problem?!
See, right there! That’s the CRACK talking. I rest my case. Cocaine will make you sell your momma’s TV. Crack will make you marry Bobby Brown and brag about it. Know the difference.
The woman has said she neither had a drug problem nor used crack! Sorry, but there’s a generally accepted premise that all drug addicts are liars…especially about being addicts and the drugs they use. It’s a rule with drug addicts. It’s just the way it is. Water is wet, the sky is blue and addicts are liars.
Why a major intervention was not staged in 2000 or 2002, I don’t know. Maybe there was one and we just didn’t hear about it. The rumors of drug use by Whitney ran rampant for much of her career, long before she and Bobby embarrassed themselves on national TV…each time. I’m not only talking about the interview with Diane Sawyer. I’m talking about each and every time Whitney was on hand to pick up Bobby when he was released from jail and felt the need to bring the press along. I’m talking about every time we saw Whitney stumble around the stage for this performance or that performance obviously not in her right mind.
Yet and even still, Whitney Houston never hit rehab (at least according to public record) prior to 2004. Bobby Brown was in and out of jail so you know he wasn’t exactly doing his part to help the situation. Given Bobby’s own drug-related offenses, when he wasn’t in jail he was right there with Whitney blazing and snorting up, so it seems.
I know what some of you are thinking. Some of you just can’t wait to tell me how “Whitney is sick” or addiction is a “disease.”
See, that’s where my sympathy runs out and where many of you will begin to really dislike me. You can wake up one morning and contract cancer, having nothing to do with cigarettes or abuse of lifestyle. You can come down with Parkinson’s and it has nothing to do with you and choices you made in life. Those are ‘diseases’ worthy of sympathy.
But I’ve yet to hear of a person wake up one morning and just came down with ‘Crack Syndrome.’
“Doctor, give it to me straight…what’s wrong with me? Yesterday I felt fine…but today I feel horrible, I married Bobby Brown and I weigh 48 lbs. What the hell is going on?!”
“I’m sorry to break the news to you, but your test came back positive. You’ve contracted Crack-n-osis. We don’t know the cause or the cure.”
“Nooooooooooooo!!!”
Sorry…but the truth is we damn sure know the ‘cause’ and the cause is Whitney. The cure is putting the pipe down.
This has gone on for many years, even decades. For it to have lasted this long, there had to have been far too many handlers, managers, family members, record executives or just general enablers who allowed this addiction get to this point. In any event, the initial responsibility and blame belongs to Whitney and Whitney alone. We’re not children anymore. We all know that there is no good time or reason to start using cocaine. And if you’re on national TV bragging about it, odds are you are probably high…even during the interview.
There is no good reason to experiment with cocaine, marijuana and prescription drugs in an illegal manner. Never. The consequences have been far more serious in our African-American communities. We of all people should know this to be true.
It’s very simple, you use drugs, you will die…probably sooner than later.
Whitney Houston is not the victim. I have more sympathy for her daughter being subjected to the madness along the way. What could be worse than happening upon both of your parents smashed out of their mind on a regular basis (assuming daddy Bobby wasn’t in jail at the time).
Where I’m most offended is that the outlandish behavior by both Whitney and Bobby has been used as the foundation for the reality TV show “Being Bobby Brown” on the Bravo network. Not only has the behavior been continuously enabled over the years, it’s been rewarded with a TV show.
So what does THAT say about our society?
Great, let me get arrested a half-dozen times and see if I can parlay that into a TV show. Right, I’ll also need a superstar wife, strung out on various illegal pharmaceutical products/controlled substances…but that’s a minor detail.
Whitney Houston is an addict and ‘back’ in rehab. That’s not the sorrowful part of this story. The saddest part is that the collective world has known about this problem for the better part of 20 years and still finds ways to both enable and reward and sympathize with the behavior. Sympathize with the family torn apart by the addict, not the addict.
Morris W. O'Kelly is a drug-free freelance entertainment writer who finds no good reason to ever try cocaine or other narcotics. You can always send your hate mail t dark.gable@sbcglobal.net and he welcomes all comments.
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