The Drugs Amy Might Have Bought Pt. 2: She Might Not Have

Results of the initial autopsy on Amy Winehouse are in, with the current cause of death listed as, "Inconclusive." Since I have to give someone credit I will default to my usual Huffington Post link, although I do so only under the understanding that I wanted something that described her as having the disease known as drug addiction instead of a drug problem, but I guess that's a little too much to ask for.

I guess at this point I should really say that I'm sorry for implying both this and my last post that drug use contributed to Amy's death. After all, the headlines all say that the results didn't show drug use. Well, heads up, that's because the toxicology report is going to take another few weeks to get in. "Inconclusive" is not the same as, "Natural causes," so let's all just mellow. If it turns out that drugs aren't to blame, I'll look like a huge dick. They weren't found in the apartment itself, but until someone confirms her blood as clean, I'm going to remain a 4 on the suspicion meter.

That said, there are a quite a few people who aren't so level headed. People who have read and posted about this generally fall into one of a few categories:

• People who know what happened, because they are doctors who ran autopsies faster than anyone else could, but kept the results secret so they could release the info in blog comments online.
• People who are supersmug because they were right when they said that she didn't die of drug use, because the headline says the autopsy showed no drugs, and they can't be bothered to read more than a sentence a day
• People who don't care at all except that there is a lot of talk about a pop star dying on a week where Norway is attacked by terrorists, Congress can't agree on how hard they want to give it to the average person this year, and the Somalian people are assured that the food being sent to them will be there "pretty soon, just hang in there."
• People who don't really seem to care either way because it is a tragedy.
• People who just don't care at all. 

[It's late, I'll finish example linking these in the morning. -Ed]


I don't really care where people fall on the spectrum. I do care that a large collective is talking about a topic that they have no knowledge about. I also care that there is so much finger pointing and blame-gaming, when there isn't anyone that holds full responsibility.

It boils down to being reasonable and respectful. No one can know everything, and it is recognizing your shortcomings that helps you grow. It's pretty easy to sit there and talk about how easy it is to not be an addict, or how it's all to blame on even trying drugs, but science says you are wrong. To write like you are an authority who can dole out punishment is a horrible thing to do, and I would be ashamed if I had such a blatant disregard for the life of another person. I'm not going to condone every action, but people are people, and even the worst of us has some shred of humanity.

Either take a minute to do a bit of reading and ask questions, or shut your mouth. It was real easy to blame Brittany Murphy's cocaine use for her death. That is, until a doctor disproved that.

That said, I'm going to mix it up. Papamalo wrote a piece earlier detailing what he thought was the problem faced by artists for die young and drug addicted. I don't agree with it, but at least he maintains a level of professionalism, and for that, I respect him.

Civilized discourse needs to be civil. I don't agree with what you are saying, but I will defend your right to say it, unless you are a total douche about it, because that isn't called for.