Xanax, the drug suspected of killing Whitney Houston, is increasingly hooking Australians and Americans. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied
- Whitney Houston a called a victim of pharmaceutical industry
- Died in bath while preparing for pre-Grammy party
- Reportedly had a prescription for Xanax
THE main suspect in Whitney Houston�s death is a drug that is increasingly hooking Americans and Australians, no matter whether they�re superstars or people living in poverty.
Ms Houston, who was 48, is being described as yet another victim of the pharmaceutical industry. Her drug of choice was reportedly Xanax, which also goes by its generic brand name, alprazolam.
Reports suggest Ms Houston fell unconscious and drowned in her bath in the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel, as she was supposed to be getting ready for a pre?Grammy Awards party.
She was declared dead at 3.55pm on Saturday afternoon after paramedics failed to revive her. The celebrity website TMZ reported that Ms Houston had been found underwater by her personal staff.
?We?re told Whitney's face was below the water and her legs were up ... like she had slid down the back of the tub,? said the website.
Ms Houston reportedly had a prescription for Xanax, which is a class of benzodiazepine, powerful anxiety reducing and habit?forming narcotics that bring on a state of tranquility and drowsiness.
Xanax was developed in the early 1970s and has become America?s number one antidepressant medicine.
The class of drug is also highly sought after for recreational purposes and in the US and Australia tops lists of drugs used by arrested criminals.
It emerged during Michael Jackson?s child molestation trial in 2005 that he was taking 10 or more Xanax pills each night, which he sourced by getting employees to shop for them under false names.
Alprazolam featured in the array of opioids and benzodiazepines that killed Australian star Heath Ledger in Los Angeles in 2008.
Last year, alprazolam was the most-prescribed drug in the United States. In Australia, Xanax is the second?most prescribed benzodiazepine behind Diazepam.
An Australian Institute of Criminology report from last year noted that benzodiazepines had significantly overtaken opioids (such as heroin and morphine) as the preferred drug among police detainees in capital city urban crime hotspots of Footscray, Kings Cross, central Adelaide and Brisbane, and East Perth.�
Elisa Baker, the woman jailed last year for the murder of her Australian stepdaughter, Zahra Baker, ran a lucrative trade out of her home in North Carolina selling Xanax and another powerful painkiller, Oxycontin, both controlled narcotics, to trailer?park customers.�
Ms Houston once denied she used crack cocaine, telling an interviewer that ?crack is wack? and that she could afford better quality drugs, meaning cocaine. But cocaine is a fast burnout drug and her journey to multi?purpose pharmaceuticals such as Xanax is a typical one, among both the poor and the wealthy.
There are reports Ms Houston only used Xanax prior to performances, but the drug is not taken like a Panadol to treat a one?off headache ? it needs to be taken over time for efficacy.
Ms Houston, who was long believed to have a badly managed drug problem, had not been seen on stage for 12 months prior to her death.
Ms Houtson told Oprah Winfrey in 2009 that she did not blame her former husband, Bobby Brown, for her drug use. Mr Brown has often been compared to Tina Turner?s controlling ex?husband, Ike, but Ms Houston said she was just as responsible.
?I didn't do anything without him,? she said. ?I wasn't getting high by myself. It was me and him together, and we were partners, and that's what my high was ? him. He and I being together, and whatever we did, we did it together. No matter what, we did it together.?
Ms Houston turned up at a Los Angeles nightclub on Thursday night, where her friend, R&B singer Kelly Clark was having a party. The available footage shows her appearing slightly dislocated from events singing a few lines in a rasping, broken voice before wandering off.
Erratic and irritable, and seen as undependable by booking agents, at her shows in Australia in 2010 she appeared out of sorts at her early shows in Brisbane and Sydney, sweating profusely and seemingly, at times, on the verge of shutdown.
She had lost her high register in singing ?I will Always Love You? and had a back-up singer carry that part of the song. ?Out of breath, incoherent, barely sung any full songs and butchered the ones she did,? one fan wrote to The Courier Mail.
Her Australian promoter Andrew McManus said at the time the Brisbane show was not great but said: ?This is an icon of the business who hit rock bottom and is fighting back, instead of slamming her we should be praising her.?
But by the time she reached Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne she appeared to have pulled herself back together and lacerated the media for questioning her; nevertheless, she cancelled the New Zealand leg of her tour.
Los Angeles police said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding Ms Houston?s death but reportedly seized prescription drugs from her fourth?floor hotel room.
Her body was taken to the Los Angeles morgue where an autopsy will be conducted.
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The Australian study into the non-medical use of benzodiazepines among police detainees who cooperated with researchers said they were able to source the pharmaceuticals without difficulty, through family and friends or from their usual doctor and pharmacy.
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