Pubdate: Wed, 05 Mar 2008
Source: McGill Tribune (CN QU Edu)
Column: Pop Rhetoric
Copyright: 2008 The McGill Tribune
Contact:  http://www.mcgilltribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2672
Author: Laura Tindal

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.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom