Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse, Pete Doherty, Lindsay Lohan...they're all the same really aren't they after a while. The same stories. We entertain ourselves on how low they can sink, another puncture in the inflated bubble of glamourous, but cheap, celebrity. Build 'em up, knock 'em down, and so on it goes until a new 'star' arrives.
My problem is not with these overblown and over-hyped semi-talented celebrities. If they want to allow their lives to spiral away into drug-fuelled destruction, thats very much up to them and there's very little anyone else can actually do about it. If they want to squander their wealth and fame in such a narrow, self-centred manner, thats fine. We should just leave them to get on with it.
Although maybe once in a while they'd like to be reminded of the millions of poor children and young people in lesser developed parts of the planet who would give anything to have one hundreth of what they probably squander in drugs in one night to feed their families for a week or to give themselves a proper education. Or the thousands of disabled people in this country for whom every hour of the day is a battle just to accomplish basic things. There are many more, much worse off people (through no fault of their own whatsever) who we never hear about and who are far more deserving of public sympathy and empathy. Everyone should slap themselves around the face with a true sense of perspective.
My problem is with those in the media who deliberately chose to exploit their predicaments for their own selfish ends because it feeds the hunger for cheap, un-newsworthy journalism. How many of the journalists who are so quick to moralise are complete hypocites, I wonder.
My problem is also with the moral devoid vultures around these people who supply them with their drugs - surely in such high profile cases, the police must have a good idea who is at the source, but then intelligent, pro-active policing is another story - and profit from them.
Its the same with anyone who is happy and conscious free to use hard drugs. Of course they are illegal, but that should not really be the main point. The main point is that using hard drugs has some very nasty consequences - not for the users, thats up to them - but for the lives of those caught up in the revolting worlds of the smuggling and dealing, the children in poor faraway countries who are exploited, the women who are raped and used as drug mules, the innocent victims who get shot dead on our streets in turf wars between gangs. Maybe the next time anyone thinks taking hard drugs is glamorous or trendy, they should stop to think about where they have come from and the blood shed along the way.
So a message to the tabloids should be - leave this people alone and let them fall back into obscurity. If you want to expose and shame the people around them exploiting them, thats fine. But then again, who is it that buys all those tabloids and lick their lips each time a new piece of celebrity gossip emerges on their front pages. It is us, the public, of course isnt it?