THE WAR ON DRUGS...ROLLING STONES STYLE

The War on Drugs has received four more troops in recent weeks, in
the unlikely guise of The Rolling Stones. At the premiere of Martin
Scorsese's new Stones flick Shine A Light, heroin-haggard Keith
Richards and Mick Jagger spoke of their concern over Amy Winehouse's
substance abuse and warned young musicians to not use drugs.

Catching a whiff of their hypocrisy, they used ignorance to cover
their trail: "When we were experimenting with drugs, little was known
about the effects," Jagger said.

Do they think they're fooling anybody?

How could you not catch on to the unhealthy and possibly deadly side
effects of drugs while watching Brian Jones devolve into a
drug-addicted waste-of-space? Did they think that his mouth bleeding
while playing harmonica was just a sign of musical passion, or that
Ronnie Wood's collapsing nose was a positive side effect of cocaine?

If anybody needs today's science and hindsight to tell them that
heroin is harmful, maybe they should consider blaming the acid for
those holes in their brain.

The fact is, if the Rolling Stones-and every other musician who began
resembling Ozzy Osbourne as they aged-knew what we know today about
the long-term effects of drugs, they would still take them. They
would take them for the same reasons they took them back then and the
same reasons people today (who are indoctrinated with anti-drug
propaganda starting in kindergarten) take them now: drugs are fun.
And if you're a rock musician, they're a necessary part of the
ensemble, nearly as important as Keith's headband or Mick's chicken strut.

Yet the drug-addicted musicians of today sure aren't as tough as they
used to be. It seems like the second anybody starts to feel mildly
inclined towards anything, their publicist sends them off to rehab.

Who hasn't been to rehab these days? Joaquin Phoenix explained this
celebrity phenomena nicely: "Paragraph two, page 148 of the actors'
manual reads, 'If you want to get nominated for an Oscar, go into rehab.'"

Definitely a change from Mick's early days, when he says "There were
no rehab centres.

Anyway, I did not know about them." Back then musicians followed a
healthy regimen of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, and to get treated
for too much of any of those would have meant being scorned by your
peers. But if there had been spa-like rehabilitation clinics in the
70s, they would have put today's Betty Ford Clinics to shame.

Today's addiction-battling babes include the likes of Kirsten Dunst
and Eva Mendes, stars who seem like they would measure out just a
little less cough syrup than it says on the box just to be safe. If
the drug-fuelled rockstars of the 70s were to go to rehab with the
domesticated, publicity whores of today, it would be like putting
Paris Hilton and Karla Homolka in the same prison cell.

The Rolling Stones should be proud of Amy Winehouse for acting like a
true rockstar, flaunting her life of debauchery and petty crimes and
defying the odds in any friendly death pool. Her and other old
schoolers like Pete Doherty need to be commended for not hiding their
true love of illegal substances and music.

The Stones should take a lesson from them and not try to hide who
they are-and what they snort.

Just a couple years before this recent plea for youth not to do drugs
because they're dangerous, Keith decided to give up narcotics once
and for all. Not because they were unsafe though, but because they
just aren't made as strong as they used to be.