Michael Jackson -- What the doctor ordered?

There's a lot of speculation surrounding Michael Jackson's death, and I think it's going to be a while before we get some answers.

I for one can't wait to find out why a cardiologist--a cardiologist, for crying out loud!--did not have Michael Jackson on the floor receiving CPR. Chest compressions cannot and should not be administered on a bed. Dr. Conrad Robert Murray should've known better--right? And did he really live in the house?

I wonder how much Demerol was in the injection he reportedly received an hour before collapsing. I wonder what else he had taken that day or was taking daily. I wonder how long they (whoever "they" are) waited to call 911.

Tonight, the Los Angeles Times reported that a private pathologist hired by the family has completed a second, independent autopsy on Michael Jackson's body. No word yet on when the results will be announced...if at all.

After an interview with the LAPD, a lawyer for the doctor s aid he's "in no way a suspect." Well, that's what any lawyer would say. The issue, however, is what medications and at what doses he was prescribing for or giving Michael, and how he handled the emergency. If it turns out Michael was overmedicated, as alleged by several people who knew him well, then whoever facilitated those medications is going to be investigated.

Someone's tail must be so far up his/her ass right now, it might never again see the light of day, if you ask me.

It's a shame that medications that help people cope with a myriad of ailments get bad press at the drop of a hat because of incidents such as this one in which they are abused or improperly administered or combined. Where's the press about the millions of people who benefit from these drugs?

With Ana Nicole Smith and Heath Ledger dying suddenly and tragically within the last couple of years after evidently self-destructing with drugs, tougher regulations for these medications--already highly controlled--might be underway. But these could end up doing more damage than good for those who need them and take them responsibly.

I'm not condoning addiction, which is not the same as physical dependency. Opiates and benzos affect the body in such a way that some degree of physical dependency is all but certain as drug tolerance increases. Addiction, on the other hand, involves a psychological dependency, a compulsive need for the substance. So while I don't condone addiction of any kind, I'm sick and tired of hearing the likes of Deepak Chopra--who believes that anything and everything can be solved with a mind-over-matter approach-- demonizing meds, claiming there are "other ways to manage pain." Well, not always. Anyone who preaches there's always another way has never experienced true, debilitating, untreatable, intolerable pain.

When debating gun control, some of those defending the right to bear arms say "it's not the guns, it's the people." Well, then following that logic, it's not the meds, it's the people.

Michael had a problem with substance abuse, one for which he cancelled a tour to go to rehab in 1993. In 2007, a Beverly Hills pharmacist sued him for $100,000 in unpaid meds accumulated in about two years. That's a lot of meds... In addition, since his death two days ago, people relatively close to him are saying he was overmedicating with narcotics.

It all points in one direction, but we'll have to wait weeks, usually six to eight, for the toxicology results.

Meanwhile, I have a bone to pick (well, another one). Why, oh, why do reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton always end up in the middle of any issue involving any African American, speaking for them often as unauthorized spokesmen? I can't help but think that sometimes they show up only to use the events as springboards to advance their own agendas. If I'm way off, I apologize.

Anyway...

I think the 50-show "This Is It" European tour scheduled to start this summer was the straw that broke the camel's back. There was simply no way that someone as frail and ill as Michael would've had the stamina for such a tour. He probably knew it. And if his mind didn't know it or want to accept it, his body did.

While the mind can jump though hoops to rationalize just about anything and push the body to the brink, the body knows best. I think his body took over in the end.

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