I personally don't have any stomach for Tony Bennet's plea to legalize drugs. First of all, who said Whitney Houston bought her prescription drugs illegally on the street? It's pretty clear any celebrity can find a "Dr. Feelgood" physician to dole out a smorgasbord of pills.
Substance abuse is a giant, costly problem for the United States. Far more Americans die by their own hand from substance abuse than are killed in violent crimes. The news media routinely brings up the 5-year death toll from drug related gang violence in Mexico. It is a mass tragedy. What the news media will not say is more Americans are dying in the United States every year from substance abuse than that cumulative 5 year total in Mexico.
Alcohol is a legal drug. Alcohol related liver failure kills between 14,000 and 17,000 Americans every year. That's not far from the 18,000 yearly average for murders. And that's just one part of alcoholism; it doesn't factor in drunk driving deaths or other ways one can buy it in the short term or long term from alcohol abuse. Two years ago my next door neighbor died of liver failure due to her drinking problem. She was only 41. A couple weeks ago I attended the funeral of a former coworker who died of the same thing. He was 55. Their deaths didn't make any news headlines.
Regarding prescription drugs, an ethical doctor will not give drugs to a patient just to get high. Pain killers, muscle relaxants, anti-depressants, sleeping pills, etc. are not designed to get people high. Such drugs become dangerous when used for that purpose. The fact that so many Americans are getting addicted to those drugs and even overdosing or dying from them just goes to show they're using those drugs in a very stupid, foolhardy manner. Having some sort of friendly legal pill clinic won't do anything to stop an addict's downward trajectory.
This country has to seriously confront the problem of substance abuse. The media and people who drive our popular culture certainly don't want to do any of that. Yeah, they'll cry over the death of a celebrity, but they don't want to face the larger problem. Doing so will just rain negative vibes on the party.