Testing It Up

It has been almost five months since Michael Jackson passed away, but the controversy surrounding his death remains unresolved. The culprit behind his untimely demise has already been ruled as a drug overdose, but the thing about drugs is that it does not find its way into someone’s body on its own – there is someone else who placed it in there, or at least paved the way for it to get there.

In the case of Michael Jackson, the blame train still has not reached its final destination. Michael’s sister Janet, however, has her own opinion; and as far as she is concerned, the person to be held responsible for her late brother’s fate is his doctor, Conrad Murray.

As far as investigations go, however, Janet’s opinion will most probably have little, if any, bearing on what the outcome of inquiries regarding possible manslaughter. But when it comes to public opinion, what Michael’s siblings have to say will probably influence what the rest of the interested populace might think.

Janet Jackson has mostly been mum regarding the death of her brother, but this is something that she cannot do forever. She finally speaks out during an interview with Robin Roberts on the ABC show “In The Spotlight”. The interview in its entirety will be aired on Wednesday night.

The network, however, has posted excerpts of the interview on their website. One of the things that Janet expressed during her interview was the fact that she still thinks a lot about her brother – “a day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about him.” And a lot of people will probably agree that it has been a rather tough year, at least for the Jackson family.

The surgery anesthetic propofol and the sedative lorazepam were identified as the primary drugs that caused Michael Jackson’s death.

Asian pop star and actress Noriko Sakai now faces 18 months in jail with a 3 year suspension for her drug use according to the ruling of the Tokyo District Court. The charges stem from her arrest in August of this year a week after her husband Yuicho Takaso was discovered in a public park bathroom with stimulants. The actress went into hiding for a week after the incident with her ten year old son and then later turned herself in. Her drug use it appears has been ongoing for the last two years. Her husband stated in court that Sakai had become an addict and Saki pleaded guilty to charges in court at her own trial. Prosecution demanded the 18 month sentence as a result and the court complied.

The trial drew the focus of the public and over 3,000 people made a bid to get one of the 20 seatings available to the public during the trial. The trial has drawn intense levels of media scrutiny since Sakai’s arrest as she is known on the Asian world for her wholesome pop star image. The star’s career began in the 80sa when she was a teen and had successfully merged into an acting career as she grew older. Sakai is known for her achieving the very unusual precedent of being successful in both China and Japan. Only time will tell if thus drug scandal will hurt the star’s career, though in many places fans say they stand by the star.

Golf is one sport that performance enhancing drugs don’t seem to play a part in and with the PGA’s new drug policy (instated last year) they’re out to make sure it stays that way. However Doug Baron has failed to pass a drug test and subsequently has been banned for the next year of play. It’s a surprising result seeing as Barron hasn’t been playing a consistent PGA tour schedule since 2006 and only managed to compete in four of the games in this year’s Nationwide tour.

While the tour declined further comment the 40 year old golfer apologized for his actions through them saying that he’d never intended to gain an unfair advantage over other players. As is standard the PGA only announced the positive result and the length of time Barron would undergo suspension as a result. The finer details of the incident and the exact drugs abused are details the PGA chooses to withhold. The announcement came November 2^nd after the drug test results came in.

Many professional fields have taken on a no drug policy since the 1980s and begun testing their employees (whether sports player or working Joe) to maintain that standard despite many attempts to subvert it. Now it seems that certain recording labels may be considering doing the same with their recording artists.

UK recording labels feel that there may be a lot to lose where it comes to drug use by their signed acts, so much so that they’ve been considering instating a drug policy of their own. The policy would be a clause in the contract that recording artists sign when they join a label. Michael Jackson’s homicide brought on the move by a newly formed alliance led by Marc Marot, a former head of Island Records. The clause would require that a recording artist who was found to be abusing substances would receive no payment for their work until they’d undergone treatment for the abuse.

These concerns rise from recording artists who’ve signed a 6 album record contract with labels and then begun to abuse drugs delaying their ability (or negating it) to provide what they’d promised in their contracts.  But if such a clause were instated how much would it change the recording industry and the way that artists are paid for their work? Couldn’t it in fact allow a label to renege on a contract entirely on the basis that an album’s sales weren’t good and the label made up a phony positive drug test result?

There is a lot of drama being played out at this time in the world of tennis. The first is probably the admission of one of the brightest stars in the tennis constellation Andre Agassi that he was into recreational drugs, specifically crystal meth. While Agassi has been quoted as saying his honesty was a difficult thing for him to do – being compensated five million dollars to do it – his claim that he was able to test positive for the existence of banned substances in his system and talk his way out of it certainly made it appear that certain officials were fools.

Yanina Wickmayer, the 20-year old Belgian who is currently ranked No. 18, on the other hand, has been slapped with a one year ban. The reason was that the athlete reportedly failed to report her whereabouts three times over an 18-month period. No, she did not test positive for anything and made up some insane alibi and somehow got away with it. No, she did not fail to show up for a drug test.

It certainly does seem that officials feel like they were taken for a ride and would like to flex their muscles and show that hey, you know, we are in charge. And somehow, someone needs to be punished in order to put this power on display. Looks like Wickmayer was easy bait, despite the fact that the recommended “punishment” for her “sins” was a quick slap on the hand – a stern warning.

As of Thursday, Wickmayer has withdrawn from an event in Bali, but she will reportedly not take this sitting down and will make an appeal. Apparently, she had trouble with her password while trying to get into the WADA website to update her whereabouts.

Poor Yanina.

The tennis star whose recent revelation that he used crystal meth in 1997 (the year he dealt with having dropped out of the sport along with other personal problems) sent shockwaves through the sports world, is now making it very clear that that use didn’t extend to the court. In fact the star claims that doing such a thing would have been physically impossible.

”No, I never did it in tournaments, I never did because it would have been a disaster. It’s hideous; it’s not the way you feel but what you’re incapable of. Your heart rate runs high enough as it is but to have that kind of heart rate and to tell yourself to calm down and hit a second serve is literally impossible. Then there’s the dehydration factor, the fact you can’t drink a lot of water, you don’t want to eat, you just wanna burn, you wanna burn, you wanna burn. You’d be lucky to last a set; it would not be physically possible to play a match without real health problems.”

Regretting his lies to the Association of Tennis Professionals the tennis star admits that it was the low point of his life, having made a name for himself in a career he didn’t choose for himself (a decision he says his father pushed on him) and hopes that his talking about it can help others who are stuck in a similar place.

“If my story can help one person let alone millions of people who wake up in a life they didn’t choose, wake up in a marriage they didn’t want … if it can help a teenager about to step into the pitfalls I stepped into – then that’s an easy price to pay if the price is some judgments, or some loss of reputation or some false image.”

Noriko Sakai a pop star turned actress is facing an 18 month jail term for drug possession and use but could be sentenced to as many as 10 years in prison for the offense. She’s plead guilty to the charges stemming from an incident where the star was caught by police with about .008 of a gram of methamphetamines. Known for her wholesome pop star image the star is now dealing with a great deal of media and public attention for her drug use. Over 6,000 people showed up to attempt to get one of the twenty gallery seats available in the first days of the trial at the Tokyo District Court.

The incident began with her husband being apprehended for inhalation and passion of the drug in a men’s room stall. During his arrest the actress refused to allow search of her purse and a drug test at the scene. Initially the media portrayed her as the misfortunate wife of a drug user but quickly turned aggressive when it came out (when police found the drugs in her home) that she was also a user.  The actress, who’d gone missing for a time after her husband’s arrest, later turned herself in to the authorities.

The actress blamed her husband for her beginning use 4 years ago and has made a point of saying she want to get off the drugs and divorce her husband before going on with her life.

Andre Agassi has admitted in his new autobiography that in the past he used drugs and even lied when he failed a drug test during his career. When a drug test came back positive from the Association of Tennis Players in 1997 the tennis star wrote a note alleging that a former assistant often spiked his soda with methamphetamine and that he (Agassi) had unwittingly ingested one of these spikes sodas. The lie worked and he went on to continue his career.  While Agassi’s assistant is said to have regularly spiked his drinks like this by the star the drug was in his system due to his own use.

The lie came as a result of Agassi’s fear of losing the status he’d gained as a tennis player. The resulting guilt may have played a part in what would turn out to be the player’s worst year where he failed to get the title, and missed both Wimbledon and the French and Australian Opens.  His playing that year brought him to the low level of 141 at one point in the year. Slim, the assistant that Agassi blamed for his allegedly false positive that year was the source of Agassi’s first use of the drug according to the book.

Dangerous levels of addictive sedatives and opiates were given to the star by her internist even after she was asked to seek drug counseling for her use. The star consumed high levels of these drugs for long periods and manipulated doctors into allowing her to have prescription drugs despite her clear addiction to their use. Sandeep Kapoor, her psychiatrist, prescribed these medications without analyzing Smith’s medical history, conducting lab tests or a physical to determine if there was a reason to give her such high doses of these drugs. Now both Kapoor and Smith’s boyfriend may face charges to the effect that they deliberately gave Smith large doses of these drugs over time and were responsible for her lethal overdose.

Kapoor and Howard K Stern have both plead not guilty in the case. The state medical board review of Kapoor behavior for the three years preceding Smith’s death found that there were several incidences of excessive prescription in that time. The trouble began in 2004 when Smith broke two ribs and was prescribed Diluadid (a very addictive and powerful opiate) for the injury an injury that in any other case would have only merited a low grade opiate at best. Smith was also on the drug for 6 months, ordinarily only a week or two would be necessary. It was Smith’s slurred speak and behavior in television interviews that caused the doctor to take her off the drug.

About 16 months later Smith was put into the hospital for severe withdrawal while pregnant. She was being slowly taken off sedatives and methadone to help protect her baby. Once she was released however Kapoor prescribed her more sedatives and methadone. Prescriptions for these drugs continued until the star’s death.

It has been more than two and a half years since model and actress Anna Nicole Smith succumbed to what is being pointed out as an overdose on a cocktail of medications at her hotel room in Florida, but her death is far from being a closed book. A judge has ordered for the trial of two LA doctors as well as her boyfriend and companion, Howard K. Stern, on charges of illegally providing Smith with prescription drugs.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry based his decision on a various witness accounts and a review of medical files. All these reportedly pointed to the fact that the model/actress was a “drug addict” and indicated in his decision that there was “an ongoing and widespread effort” to supply her with prescription drugs. He did mention, though, that prosecutors only needed to demonstrate very minimal proof and that the proof presented was below what would be required if a trial conviction was needed.

However, whatever was presented was enough to raise suspicion that Stern and Dr. Sandeep Kapoor and Dr. Khristine Eroshevich committed the acts that they are being accused of.

Among the witnesses who testified before the judge were Smith’s bodyguard Maurice Brighthaupt and the father of Smith’s daughter Dannielynn, Larry Birkhead. Anna Nicole Smith was reportedly addicted to a variety of prescription medications. Among the medicines mentioned in the report were Valium, methadone, Xanax, the anti-seizure medicine Topamax, the muscle relaxant Soma, the sedative chloral hydrate and Dilaudid, a painkiller that is also known as “hospital heroin”.

All three defendants are being accused of conspiring to provide Smith with these addictive medications, ranging from illegal prescriptions to using aliases to picking up pharmacy refills and calling in requests for such refills. All three have pleaded “not guilty” to the charges and are expected to do the same thing during an arraignment on December 11.