So apparently, even sleazy doctors should have standards.
I'm not quite sure what those standards should be, but at the very least, those charlatans and feelgoods and doctor mills should take note: almost anything goes with your painkiller addict patients. Just don't get too hands on when they OD.
I'm not trying to excuse Conrad Murray, God knows, justify his sleazy ethics (and lack of them), or suggest that his actions leading up to Michael Jackson's death are defensible... but watching yesterday's trial verdict - indeed, following the trial at all - was quite surreal. And so, on the one hand, there was somehow no other vedict possible but guilty. On the other, I'm still not entirely convinced that Murray, alone, bears sole guilt for Jackson's death.
What, after all, was Michael Jackson doing in the bedroom of a rented mansion in one of the wealthiest sections of Los Angeles? Well, partly, because he'd blown through a vast fortune feeding his expensive tastes, including an addiction to painkillers and barbituates. He'd been getting regular administaryion of Demerol... from his dermatologist. And finally, desperate for more cash, he'd signed on to do a massive series of live performances, a grueling schedule for the healthiest of performers (the only comparable schedule I could ever think of was both Bette Midler and Diana Ross, who each did a month or more at Radio City), which he wasn't.
Why was Conrad Murray on a six figure retainer to "treat" Michael Jackson? Because Jackson, and his people, convinced the tour promoters that Murray could serve as the required "physician" to certify that Jackson was healthy enought to perform, so that the concerts could be insured. And why was Murray administering regular doses of Propofol, a surgical anesthetic? Because Jackson's drug habits, and most likely his withdrawal from Demerol, left him sleep deprived and desperate.
Take away the millions and the fame and the media sideshow... and didn't we just more or less convict Jackson's drug dealer for shooting him up in a high-end smack shooting gallery? And if that's the case... then yes, I'm all for convicting drug dealers. But don't drug addicts bear some responsibility for their predicaments?
It's true,of course: Conrad Murray should never have signed on to the role of Michael Jackson's aesthesiologist. For one thing, it wasn't his specialty. For another, he seemed utterly naive about the depth of Jackson's addiction issues. But Jackson seems like an especially clever addict in this regard - finding the one doctor whose need for cash would override his muddled ethics long enough for him to get what he wanted.
But to lay guilt solely on Murray is to lose sight of how Jackson wound up in that place, at that time: the years of abuse as a child, the enabling behavior of record execs who "loaned" Jackson millions to feed his habits, and the cadre of sleazy doctors who fed Jackson's disastrous habits. Murray's not the first, or the last, or certainly the worst of a class of medical professionals whose prescription pad can be had at the right price. And Murray, it strikes me, is hardly the only reason Michael Jackson is dead.
Murray's conviction, in a cultural sense, absolves the rest of us of any feelings of guilt. Those of us who watched the Jackson freak show and knee something was not right, and that worshipful cult of Jackson's fans - some of the most obsessed and least clear sighted - for whom he could never do a wrong. That, after all, was Jackson's real drug: an approving crowd to applaud his every move, encourage his flights of fantasy, and never question his pain or criticize his choices. By all means, someone should try and stop those sleazy doctors. I just wish we'd stop kidding ourselves about what it takes to help drug addicts... or at least not pretend that Michael Jackson wasn't one.
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