Drugs and Dead Musicians

Throughout the modern music era, many popular musicians have succumbed to drugs and have died because of it.  Interestingly enough, Michael Jackson is no exception. 

It is new question that Michael Jackson, the King, was one of the greatest entertainers who ever lived, but Michael's personal life and struggle with never having a childhood got him into some infamous incidents and drugs.  Michael had suffered from a recurrent addiction to pain-killers for decades.  He died of cardiac arrest on June 25, 2009.
Anesthetic Propofol and sedative Lorazepam were found to be the most significant in Michael's system at his time of death.  The Propofol, which was most significant, was used to treat Michael's severe insomnia.  Midazolan, diazepam, Lidocaine, and ephedrine were the less significant drugs also found in Michael's system when he died.
He is also cited as having used many different anti-depressants including Xanax, Zoloft, Priolsec, Vicodin, Paxil, Zoma, and Dilaudid.  Michael had aliases he used to refill prescriptions as well; like Jack London and Omar Arnold.  His memorial was broadcast around the world to almost a billion people.



Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was one of the most popular musicians who got heavily involved in drugs.
 Although he died of a gunshot wound to the head, Kurt's drug addiction is what essentially killed him. 
On March 25, 1994 his wife, Courtney Love attempted to schedule an intervention for Kurt's drug use.  He left for rehabilitation on the 30th, ditched rehabilitation the next day and that's when the search for Kurt began. 
He was found April 8 with a shotgun pointed at his chin next to a suicide note.
 In his suicide note, he claimed, "I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music for too many years now."  A high concentration of heroin, (his strongest addiction) and Valium were found in his body.  He also experimented with marijuana, LSD, and Percodan.  He is estimated to have died April 5, 1994.



Fascinatingly, exactly eight years later to the day, April 5, 2002, Layne Staley of Alice in Chains died of a "speedball" which is a dangerous combination of cocaine and heroin.  He died being 6'1 and weighing 86 pounds.  Layne was addicted past the point of leisure.  In his last interview in 2002, he stated "I'm not using drugs to get high like many people think. I know I made a big mistake when I started using this s***. It's a very difficult thing to explain. My liver is not functioning, and I'm throwing up all the time. The pain is more than you can handle. It's the worst pain in the world."



Sublime's lead singer, Bradley Nowell died at 28 of a heroin overdose.  He was not frail looking and struggling like Layne was.  He was fine aside from his addiction to heroin and casual use of marijuana.  He was found with a green film around his mouth, characteristic of a heroin overdose.  He died right before the beginning of the tour for their self-titled major label debut on May 25, 1996.



Quite similarly, Janis Joplin died at 27 of a heroin overdose.  She also experimented with amphetamines and was a heavy drinker of specifically Southern Comfort.  She died on October 4, 1970 in the hotel room she stayed in for over a month.  The death was stated to be caused by overdose on heroin with influence of alcohol.



Jimi Hendrix initially died of Vesperax, a German sleeping pill, with more potency than Jimi expected.  The dosage is half a tablet and Jimi took nine.  He also had an excessive amount of red wine in his system.  There is new speculation upon his death.  In May of this year, one of Hendrix's roadies came out with a 38 year old confession that his manager Michael Jeffery shoved those pills down his throat and administered all of the wine because he had planned to go without his management.  The current story is that he began vomiting massive amounts of red wine and asphyxiated in a pool of his own vomit on September 20, 1970.





Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols died of a heroin overdose administered by his mother at only 21 on February 1st 1979.  He was accused of stabbing a groupie with whom he later had a relationship with, Nancy Speungen.  He was going to go to jail for it.  One day after being released on bail, he met at his new girlfriend's house, clean as a feather, and a note was found in his pocket after he died in his sleep that said, "We made a death pact, and I have to accomplish my part of the deal. Please bury me next to my baby. Please bury me with my leather jacket, my jeans and my biker boots. Goodbye. With love, Sid."  It was later admitted by his mother that she administered the heroin to him in his sleep because she knew he didn't want to be behind bars.


It is debatable whether Elvis Presley's cardiac arrythmia was caused by drugs because the coroner noted that there is no conclusive data to show that Elvis's death was caused by drug overdose.  However, it is noted that Elvis spent at least $1 million on 10,000 administered doses of amphetamines, sedatives, and narcotics in the first eight months of 1977.  He died August 16, 1977.   

Drugs are a notoriously part of the rock and roll culture.  It is foolish of us to believe that these human beings can handle the entire spotlight shined upon them without the help of something to distract them.  If it weren't for these drug overdoses, all of these recognizable and respected musicians would likely still be alive.