Poor Little Rich Girl?

by Kathryn Casey and Cathy Scott

Flashback: Paris Hilton on "Larry King Live" in June 2007, two days after her release from jail: "I'm going to have a new beginning. I'm going to raise money for kids, for breast cancer, for multiple sclerosis."

Sounded like the young Ms. Hilton had learned her lesson, didn't it? Apparently not. She's been busted again, this time in Las Vegas, at 11:30 Friday night, in a car. Her boyfriend, Cy Waits, was driving, but police say Hilton had cocaine on her. Apparently a motorcycle cop noticed a trail of smoke "from a controlled substance" following the Cadillac Esplanade and pulled it over. Waits was booked as well and held, along with Paris, in the Clark County jail in downtown Las Vegas, where Paris spent the night until her release on her own recognizance early Saturday.

Hilton's "people" haven't commented yet, but there'll be another round of 24/7 press coverage, more time in a courtroom standing before a judge, and, undoubtedly, another pledge to turn her life around.

The truth is that Paris of the designer clothes, expensive jewelry and mega-watt smile isn't all that young anymore. Heck, she's 29, edging up on the big three-O. So our question to you is: Where does Paris Hilton go from here? Will this be her future, going from one jail to another, paying a battalion of attorneys, all for the purpose of smoothing over the frayed edges of a drug-addicted, out-of-control life?

Paris has already lawyered up with influential criminal defense attorney David Chesnoff (once a law partner to Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman), who was able to get her released from jail without having to post bail. Chesnoff has represented celebrities in the past, including Martha Stewart, Mike Tyson, Shaquille O'Neal, Suge Knight, Lindsay Lohan, and now Paris Hilton. Don't most of us dream of having what Paris was handed at birth: enough money to do whatever we want with our lives? Never having to worry about working or obligations? To live without the responsibilities nearly everyone else struggles with just to pay the rent and put food on the table? It's hard for us to feel sorry for Paris Hilton. Her record is just getting too darn long. After all, she was arrested earlier this summer for suspicion of having pot in South Africa, and who can forget the 45 days she was sentenced on that DWI, which apparently didn't make an impression. Did her recent stint in a holding cell sober her up? Only time will tell.

Now, the question once again is can Paris Hilton turn her life around? And is there anything the new judge in Sin City can do to influence a woman who has everything and appears unwilling or incapable of controlling her appetites?

Mug shot courtesy of the Las Vegas police department

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When Loved Ones Do The Unthinkable

by Diane Dimond

There’s a drama playing out in West Babylon, New York that makes you want to go home and tell your family how much you love them. It also makes you wonder how much bad news about your loved one you could accept if he or she did something so horrible it caused seven innocents to lose their lives.

On Sunday, July 26th, at about 10 o’clock in the morning, Diane Schuler got behind the wheel of her red mini-van with five children, all under the age of nine -- including her brother's three little girls -- to return home from an upstate New York camping trip. At some point during the drive, Schuler’s young niece, Emma, picked up a cell phone and called her father. “There’s something wrong with Aunt Diane!” she is reported to have cried.

Diane Schuler had inexplicably gotten on a suburban highway going the wrong way. The horrific head-on crash that followed -- after she drove the wrong way for almost two miles -- killed everyone in her vehicle except her five-year-old son, Bryan. Three unsuspecting men in the other vehicle, a Chevy TrailBlazer SUV, all died. In a split second, eight people were dead in a pile of twisted and burning wreckage barely recognizable as automobile parts.

Flash forward to the toxicology report on this seemingly happily married mother of two. The coroner’s office concluded that Diane Schuler had a blood-alcohol level of .19 – more than twice the legal limit – plus six grams of unabsorbed alcohol in her stomach. In addition, her blood carried 113 nanograms per milliliter of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. The medical examiner said the level indicated Diane had smoked weed as recently as 15 minutes before the fiery crash. Translated: Schuler was very drunk and very high at the time of the accident.

Oh, and police report they found a 1.75-liter bottle of vodka in the minivan after the deadly accident.

Police waited until after the dead were buried to release Diane Schuler's toxicology report. After the information came to light, the grieving husband, Daniel, went before the press to categorically deny his 36-year-old wife had an alcohol or drug problem. He revealed he works nights, and their two children were frequently left with a babysitter, but he insisted some sort of unidentified medical problem must have caused her to lose control of the car. “She was a perfect wife, upstanding mother, a hard worker, a reliable person, trustworthy,” he said through his tears, remembering both his wife and his dead two-year-old daughter.

Denial in the face of reality. And a mourning man is left to nurse his critically wounded young son back to health. Your heart goes out to Daniel Schuler, as delusional as he is in the face of overwhelming forensics.

But that’s not all this new widower must face. A flamboyant New York attorney named Irving Anolik has entered the picture to claim “there’s a strong fragrance of criminality” to the crash deaths. He plans to file a civil suit against the Schulers. Anolik represents the family of Guy and Michael Bastardi, a father and son who died in the SUV. Anolik says it is “inconceivable” that the Schulers were unaware Diane had a drinking and drug problem.

“Any person who was aware that she was drinking is an accomplice … whoever sold her the marijuana committed a crime,” said Anolik. “She didn’t just wake up one morning with a drug problem and capable of drinking that much alcohol.”

Anolik has a point, but the whole idea of blaming the family and making them pay for their dead loved one’s actions doesn’t sit well with me. I completely understand the urge for revenge, the need to make someone pay you back for the awful thing that’s happened. But ultimately, it's empty satisfaction.

We’ve become a society of blame seekers. Someone must take the blame for all the bad things that happen to us in life. One person’s bad judgment can't be merely accepted. For some reason, we need to point the finger of responsibility at others and demand money to ease our hurt and our loss. Of course, money doesn’t do either. The dead are still dead, and we still feel the tremendous loss deep in our souls.

But there’s always a lawyer willing to take the case for the promise of 30% of the settlement amount. Almost all the plaintiffs I’ve spoken to at the end of long, grueling, wrongful-death lawsuits say the same thing. In retrospect, they realize the years-long legal process they endured only served to keep their grief fresh. It prolonged the pain and the time it took to heal. The family of the Bastardi father and son were in court recently asking a judge to name an executor of Diane's estate so they'll have something to sue.

Do I think the survivors of the dead in this case deserve something? Yes. They deserve some peace for the awful event that has shattered their lives.

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Prescription For Trouble

by Diane Dimond

We are a pill-popping culture. We take pills to sleep, wake up, get happy, keep our children less hyper. And while people might not realize it, sharing prescription drugs, using false names to get prescription drugs or shopping around to get more than one doctor to prescribe extra prescription drugs are all against the law.

It used to be that law enforcement worried only about illegal drugs like marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines. Now they’re dealing with the criminal aftermath of a record number of people getting high on prescription drugs: Deadly car accidents, domestic abuse, sex offenses -- all committed by people too impaired to control themselves. Addicts of prescription drugs have been known to commit crimes to pay for their pills once their insurance runs out.

Health-care providers and law enforcement will tell you prescription-drug abuse results in the same problems as street drugs: addiction, crime and broken families.

So how bad is the problem? Hold on to your hats for some brand new, jaw-dropping statistics from the Drug Enforcement Administration: seven million Americans are regularly abusing prescription drugs – not just taking them, abusing them. The drugs of choice are powerful pain killers like oxycodone (the generic name for an opiate-type drug sold under three different brand names), Percocet (known as Tylenol 3; brand name for acetaminophen with oxycodone) and Vicodin (acetaminophen with hydrocodone, another opiate-type drug).

The DEA has been studying this for years, so comparisons are easy. In the year 2000, 3.8 million Americans abused painkillers. The latest figure of seven million marks an 80 percent increase!

Prescription medications now cause more overdose deaths than cocaine and heroin combined.

If that stuns you – and I hope it does – get this: It’s not just painkillers Americans depend on to get through the day. There has also been a massive jump in anti-depressant prescriptions. It seems inconceivable, but 27 million people are currently taking anti-depressants like Paxil and Prozac, according to a new report in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

There seems to be the feeling that if a doctor prescribes it, it‘s okay to take, that prescription meds are somehow safer than street drugs. It isn’t true. Many prescription drugs have a high potential for abuse, and patients can get hooked before they realize what’s happening. Some people get so used to taking a drug their bodies begin to crave more and more of it, and they die of a self-induced overdose.

Look, lots of patients have pain and depression and truly need these drugs, there is no denying that. Probably a lot of the increase in the skyrocketing number of prescriptions can be traced to the stress of life in the United States post September 11th, 2001; to the miserable state of the economy we’ve all had to deal with; and a decline in psychotherapy sessions after many insurance companies restricted payments.

But there’s also real criminality involved here. There are doctors who act illegally when they continue to prescribe or over-prescribe to someone they believe is an addict. There are pharmacies dispensing far too many pills to one household and ignoring the red flag of possible addiction. And there are scads of rogue “pharmacy” Internet sites illegally selling controlled substances. If they run out of doctors to write scrips, addicts often turn to these cyber-drug dealers. The web sites rake in profits -- millions of dollars per month.

Lawmakers have been talking about the potential for a prescription-drug abuse epidemic in America for more than a decade. Now, with a total of 34 million patients currently taking painkillers or anti-depressants, I think we’ve hit the epidemic level. As fast as authorities shut down careless pharmacies and illegal Internet sites, or strip offending doctors of their prescription privileges, others step in to take their place. In the last three years, tens of millions of doses of prescription drugs, and tens of millions of dollars in assets have been seized. But the seizures have done nothing to stem the growth of the problem.

The most depressing part of this mess is that it’s destined to get worse. Our children are learning awful lessons from our pill-popping behavior. And it’s easy for them to simply slip a few of their parents' prescription drugs out of the medicine cabinet. Don’t imagine your kids wouldn’t think about it. The DEA reports nearly one in 10 high school seniors admit to abusing drugs that weren’t prescribed to them.

I’ve got no brilliant idea for solving this problem. It just seems that we spend so much time, effort and money fighting illegal drugs while overlooking the scourge of prescription drugs. If we’re going to crusade against one, shouldn’t we include the other?

Our kids aren’t stupid. They see the campaign against hard street drugs and then watch us down all sorts of prescription drugs as though nothing bad can happen.

Bad happens. And we should all spread the word.

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The Addict, The Enabler, and Us

by Diane Dimond

As Michael Jackson is finally laid to rest, you may ask: Who is to blame when a drug addict dies?

We now know the L.A. County Coroner considers Jackson's death a homicide caused by acute Propofol intoxication and the effects of five other powerful prescription drugs found in his system.

If the L.A. District Attorney chooses to charge Michael Jackson's personal doctor, Conrad Murray, it could very well be for manslaughter. Realistically speaking it was more like assisted suicide.

Michael Jackson had flooded his body with drugs for years. He went into drug rehab in 1993, he was often very obviously over-mediated during his 2005 child sex abuse trial, and during the run-up to his massive comeback concert tour this year we've now learned he was engaged in an orgy of drugs and self destructive behavior.

So, doesn't Michael Jackson bear some of the responsibility for his own death?

Before you answer let me tell you about a sworn affidavit, attached to a now unsealed search warrant, which outlines excruciating details about Michael Jackson's tragic final days. In the last hours of his life he was injected by his doctor or given oral doses of no fewer than four heavy-duty drugs. The last medication was Propofol, a drug used as surgical anesthesia. There are indications that when the doctor was not in the room Jackson may have sneaked even more medications in his continuing quest to end his insomnia. It's typical addict behavior.

At Jackson's bedside when he died there was a cornucopia of prescription pills, ordered up by several different doctors using fictitious patient names. It is a federal offense to prescribe pharmaceuticals under an alias. But there they were: Bottles of Valium, Tamsulosin, Lorazepam, Temazepam, Clonazepam, Trazodone and Tizanidine. Drugs used as hypnotic sedatives, to reduce pain, anxiety and muscle tension. Some treated sleeplessness. Others have a relatively high addictive potential and some are frequently sold and abused as street drugs. Finally, there was one prescription to treat an enlarged prostate, a nod to Jackson's over-50 status.

In other words, one glance at that nightstand, and a red flag should have gone up to any trained doctor that this was not a person for whom one should prescribe more drugs. But according to that sworn affidavit several doctors did – a cardiologist, a dermatologist and a general practitioner among them. Others known to have prescribed to Jackson in the recent past include at least two anesthesiologists, a plastic surgeon, a dentist and other general practitioners. Jackson had obviously been doctor shopping – but the doctors were celebrity shopping, no doubt.

Don't the doctors bear some responsibility for Jackson’s death? And what responsibility do the die-hard Michael Jackson fans bear for their blind worship? His drug addiction was no secret, yet the throngs of his followers continued to be dazzled by his stardom. Their continuing admiration sent a signal to both Jackson and his doctors that celebrity trumps all the normal rules. The status quo was working and there was no reason for the superstar to change his ways, no pressure from the entourage, because those who tried to warn Jackson to take care of his health were banished. As Jackson continued to demand more medications there were more people brought in to his long, slow suicidal process. Actually, it's a wonder he lived as long as he did.

Michael Jackson suffered from a lot of obvious maladies, many self inflicted. Not only was he abusing massive amounts of drugs, he suffered from anorexia and a body dysmorphic disorder that compelled him to repeatedly hire doctors to change his face. He had children who didn't know their mothers, he shut out much of his family lest they tell him how to live his life, and he seemed a reclusive, nomadic hermit who was never quite able to shake the taint of his child molestation trial acquittal.

Yet there were legions of fans who sent him the message that he was still the King of Pop! And there were countless doctors standing by to prescribe what he needed to get through his days.

Even in death there is blind adoration. A politician in New York is pushing to get a Brooklyn subway station – the venue for one of Jackson’s music videos – named after him. A U.S. Congresswoman pushed for an official House of Representatives commendation for the entertainer. There has been a movement to get a Michael Jackson postage stamp. What's wrong with this picture?

The truth is record numbers of Americans – tens of millions of them – are using and abusing prescription drugs. They are sick people in need of help, either for their underlying illness or for their addiction to these drugs. While I've always advocated personal responsibility, I've come to realize the responsibility must radiate outward too.

Everyone who's ever enabled a drug addict shares in the responsibility.

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Our Lost Children

by Katherine Scardino

Erin was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1987. She had an older sister and two parents struggling with substance abuse—her mother even used drugs during her pregnancy with Erin. Her mother did not last long with this family—she left when Erin was barely a year old. The children stayed with their biological father, who was a chronic alcoholic. At age 4, Erin and her sister went to live with an aunt in another state. Her father was struggling with a heroin addiction, but this new home with their aunt was as bad as the last. The aunt was physically and emotionally abusive to both girls and was finally arrested for drug smuggling.

At age 6, Erin met her stepbrother, who was 13 years old and had developed a penchant for anal sex—with Erin, which went on for several years. During this time, Erin’s older sister began giving her alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana. Erin was not yet 8-years-old, but she would already—like so many adults—drink to the point of passing out, probably as a way to deal with the sexual abuse.

When Erin was around eight years old, CPS woke up and became involved with the family. The girls were put into foster homes for a while, but went back home with their father and his wife. The heroin addiction had been dormant for a while, but it again reared its ugly head around this time, but the children knew what to do to avoid a bad situation—they smoked joints and drank alcohol. It was not until Erin made an allegation of sexual abuse against her father that CPS placed the girls in a foster home. At that point, Erin was labeled as "emotionally disturbed." She and her foster brother become sexually active—the same foster brother who fathered a child with Erin’s older sister.

At age 12, Erin was reunited with her birth mother and the girls moved in with their mother for a while. This "reunion" was seen on the Maury Povich show. The audience saw a gorgeous, red-haired, green-eyed young girl. They did not see an emotionally disturbed, sexually active, drug addicted child. The audience did not know that she was using cocaine and had been raped by three males while on cocaine. At age 14, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital where she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. (What a surprise!) She remained there for 30 days, and when it was time for her to be discharged, no one wanted her. She went to an emergency shelter and called her father. CPS allowed her to live with him again.

By age 16, Erin was not only stripping at cheap beer joints but she began prostituting to maintain her drug habit, which now had progressed to daily crack, in addition to alcohol and pot. At no point did CPS intervene and court order treatment or provide alternative options to help her. Her life was spiraling out of control. She was living on the streets or with anyone who had a roof over their head.

Erin is now twenty-one years old. She has experienced sexual abuse, rape, suicide attempts, abandonment, family dysfunction, drug abuse, neglect, multiple psychiatric/drug hospitalizations. She has also just pleaded to 40 years in prison for the murder of a young man—during a robbery—with her druggie boyfriend. This life in prison should be a piece of cake for her.

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