The "King of Pop" Michael Jackson is dead at only 50, joining many other celebrities and thousands of ordinary people whose untimely deaths associated with painkillers like OxyContin could have been avoided by a timely medical drug detox. What is it going to take for the FDA to end the prescription drug carnage in this country, especially the deadly OxyContin epidemic?

The unexpected death of Michael Jackson, allegedly addicted to painkillers for 20 years, tragically emphasizes the urgency with which the FDA should address the problems surrounding this country’s lax prescribing regulations, easy availability, and widespread abuse of opioid painkillers like OxyContin. It has been estimated that more than ten thousand Americans are suffering in the grip of OxyContin addiction.

Early reports of the pop star dying less than an hour after receiving an injection of pethidine, or Demerol, as it is better known, have since been denied. Whether true or false, numerous cases of sudden cardiac arrest have been traced to "serotonin syndrome", a sudden, overwhelming and toxic excess of serotonin activity that can lead to failure of the central nervous system, which can progress to sudden cardiac arrest.

Serotonin syndrome or toxicity can be caused by dozens of drugs, including prescription drugs, over-the-counter remedies, and even popular herbal preparations. Whether used therapeutically or recreationally, such drugs and herbs can bring about a fatal toxicity directly or inadvertently through interactions with other drugs or herbs.

Jackson family members, friends and co-workers have all been quoted in the media about Jackson’s long-term prescription drug use. Some have alluded to dependence and even addiction, especially to opioid painkillers like OxyContin. The star’s prescription drug use, reportedly to help relieve chronic back and leg pain caused by dance injuries, was apparently prodigious.

$50,000 A Year Prescription Drug Bill

The Associated Press reported back in January that the singer owed a Beverly Hills pharmacy $101,926 for prescriptions for only a two-year period, 2005 and 2006. The bills had remained unpaid until Jackson finally settled a lawsuit with the pharmacy in 2007. The dollar amount was for prescription drugs covering approximately a two-year span -- a yearly average of over $50,000. The average elderly person with chronic conditions in the U.S. spent an average of $1,912 for prescriptions in 2005, the AP said.

Jackson, according to family sources, say the singer was suffering from a 20-year addiction to Demerol and other opioid painkillers, and was also taking either antianxiety drugs (such as benzodiazepines), or antidepressants, or both, along with the painkillers, in the months, weeks and days before his tragic end.

Spiritual adviser Dr. Deepak Chopra, friends with Jackson for many years, told Canada’s CTV News last weekend that the pop star sought and found supplies of narcotics from a number of physicians. Chopra said his suspicions that the singer was addicted were aroused in 2005 when Jackson asked him for drugs. Chopra says he refused, but later learned that Jackson was "able to find enabling physicians who co-operated with him. That's something that people who are addicted are very good at."

Many questions remain about the exact cause of Jackson’s death. Toxicology screens will take four to six weeks, according to the Los Angeles medical examiner’s office. Should it be shown that the singer died from cardiac arrest, as has already been stated, it will be no surprise to learn that serotonin syndrome or some other type of collapse of the singer’s central nervous system directly attributed to prescription drugs was the villain.

The most famous serotonin syndrome death occurred in New York in 2003, when the daughter of a prominent New York family, Libby Zion, died of cardiac arrest following treatment with pethidine (Demerol) by weary, overworked doctors who failed to first establish whether or not Libby was taking any other medications. It turned out she was, leading to a fatal drug interaction. The result was new state legislation, dubbed "the Libby Zion law", regulating the number of hours that physicians can remain on post in New York State hospitals.

Pethidine acts exactly like morphine in some ways, affecting the same receptors in the brain. In many countries of the world, including Australia, the use of pethidine has been severely limited or banned completely. The FDA should provide at least as good protection from deadly opioid painkillers for American citizens.

Deaths across the country have soared dramatically in recent years from prescription opioids, with OxyContin the most flagrantly abused and deadly. Deaths, widespread addiction and ruined lives and families from OxyContin dwarf those associated with any other opioid painkiller. Pharmacologically, the active component of OxyContin, called oxycodone, has been found to be even more likely to cause dangerous drug interactions than Demerol and other opioid painkillers.

For these reasons, an online petition calling on the FDA to ban OxyContin is being sponsored by a concerned pharmacist and a drug detox specialist, both of whom routinely see the worst that OxyContin abuse can do. The petition, at www.banoxycontin.com, has attracted nearly 3,000 signatures already.

If you want to see an end to the OxyContin death pandemic, please sign the petition -- and you can sign it as "anonymous" if you want. While you’re visiting the banoxycontin web site, be sure to peruse the hundreds of comments from petitioners about their own personal OxyContin tragedies.

If you know someone who is in the grip of OxyContin or any opioid painkiller, please call the nearest medical drug detox center, the kind that provides modern, 24/7 medical care to help ease withdrawal and help them regain a drug-free life.