prev
next
Political Hotsheet © 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
White House drug czar: Whitney Houston's death points to perils of drug abuse
White House Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske is using Whitney Houston's death Saturday as an opportunity to warn of the dangers of substance abuse.
It is not yet known whether Houston's death was drug related, though the singer has acknowledged past struggles with substance abuse. Kerlikowske pointed specifically to Houston's use of prescription drugs.
"Her death is absolutely tragic and this brings attention to the problem that she had talked about in the past and that certainly is prescription drugs," Kerlikowske told Hotsheet. "It effects a huge number of people in this country and has driven deaths to very very high numbers - well over 15,000."
Complete Coverage: Whitney Houston - Death of a pop diva Whitney Houston's body to be taken home to N.J. Watch: Whitney's final performance Whitney Houston's daughter rushed to hospitalKerlikowske said one of the key parts of the Obama administration's strategy to combat drug abuse is to "remove the stigma...and to help people understand you can recover."
"I think it is what we might call a teachable moment when someone passes - particularly as someone as highly thought of and such an incredible performer as Whitney Houston," Kerlikowske said. "We can use this as a moment to help people understand. There are millions of Americans that are suffering from this problem...so we can use this as a chance to move forward."
He added that Houston's death is an opportunity to "help people understand" that reality.
Watch Kerlikowske's entire interview with CBS News' Christine Delargy in the video above.
Popular in Politics
- IRS' Lerner: "I have not done anything wrong" 414 Comments
- Officials on Benghazi: "We made mistakes, but without malice" 438 Comments
- Anthony Weiner comeback try begins: Running for NYC mayor 116 Comments
- Major immigration overhaul passes first big test
- Christie: Keep politics out of Oklahoma disaster relief
- Obama to view Oklahoma tornado damage Sunday
- Will tornado relief funding escape politics?
- Top IRS official to invoke 5th Amendment at congressional testimony 218 Comments
Most Popular
-
01
-
02
-
03
-
04
-
05
Most Shared
Most Discussed
* Colombia, Peru, Mexico or Afghanistan with their coca leaves, marijuana buds or poppy sap are not igniting temptation in the minds of our weak, innocent citizens. These countries are duly responding to the enormous demand that comes from within our own borders. Invading or destroying these countries, thus creating more hate, violence, instability, injustice and corruption, will not fix our problem.
* A rather large majority of people will always feel the need to use drugs such as heroin, opium, nicotine, amphetamines, alcohol, sugar, or caffeine.
* The massive majority of adults who use drugs do so recreationally - getting high at the weekend then up for work on a Monday morning.
* Apart from the huge percentage of people addicted to both sugar and caffeine, a small minority of adults (5%) will always experience the use of other drugs as problematic. - approx. 3% are dependent on alcohol, and 1.5% dependent on other drugs.
* Just as it was impossible to prevent alcohol from being produced and used in the U.S. in the 1920s, so too, it is equally impossible to prevent any of the aforementioned drugs from being produced, distributed and widely used by those who desire to do so.
* Prohibition kills more people and ruins more lives than the drugs it prohibits.
* Due to Prohibition (historically proven to be an utter failure at every level), the availability of most of these mood-altering drugs has become so universal and unfettered that in any city of the civilized world, any one of us would be able to procure practically any drug we wish within an hour.
* Throughout history, the prohibition of any mind-altering substance has always exploded usage rates, overcrowded jails, fueled organized crime, created rampant corruption of law-enforcement - even whole governments, while inducing an incalculable amount of suffering and death.
* Apart from the fact that the DEA is the de facto enforcement wing of the pharmaceutical industry, the involvement of the CIA in running Heroin from Vietnam, Southeast Asia and Afghanistan and Cocaine from Central America has been well documented by the 1989 Kerry Committee report, academic researchers Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott, and the late journalist Gary Webb.
* It's not even possible to keep drugs out of prisons, but prohibitionists wish to waste trillions of dollars in an utterly futile attempt to keep them off our streets.
* The United States jails a larger percentage of it's own citizens than any other country in the world, including those run by the worst totalitarian regimes, yet it has far higher use/addiction rates than most other countries.
* Prohibition is the "Goose that laid the golden egg" and the lifeblood of terrorists as well as drug cartels. Both the Taliban and the terrorists of al Qaeda derive their main income from the prohibition-inflated value of the opium poppy. An estimated 44 % of the heroin produced in Afghanistan, with an estimated annual destination value of US $ 27 Billion, transits through Pakistan. Prohibition has essentially destroyed Pakistan's legal economy and social fabric. - We may be about to witness the planet's first civil war in a nation with nuclear capabilities. - Kindly Google: 'A GLOBAL OVERVIEW OF NARCOTICS-FUNDED TERRORIST GROUPS' Only those opposed, or willing to ignore these facts, want things the way they are.
* The future depends on whether or not enough of us are willing to take a long look at the tragic results of prohibition. If we continue to skirt the primary issue while refusing to address the root problem then we can expect no other result than a worsening of the current dire situation. - Good intentions, wishful thinking and pseudoscience are no match for the immutable realities of human nature.
* The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it. - H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American editor, essayist and philologist.