How many times have we all joked and said. “It’s not my job…” ?

With today’s announcement of the death of Amy Winehouse and with it the expectation that the death will be ruled drug-related, one has to wonder if any of us will live to see the day that employers (in this case, record companies) will be held accountable for deaths of this nature.

In rehab whilst winning Grammy awards, Winehouse was criticized by someone who had been in the same boat. Singer Natalie Cole stated, “She shouldn’t be allowed to have her cake and eat it too.” I totally agree. While I understand that substance abuse is a disease in some eyes, there is too much social and cultural influence here for an artist to not be forced to get and sustain help or , in cases like Winehouse, maybe just get fired. The head of Island records says he considered doing just that but Winehouse was aggressively seeking help.

It didn’t work. How about mandatory drug testing for rock stars? How about mandatory drug testing for everybody and it simply being illegal for us to get stoned? And we get fired for doing so? Yeah, yeah, I know. Sounds like Big Brother but Big Brother is watching us already and we’ve become just like him. We know every move of so many people. The media or people’s constant updating on Facebook let’s us in on all of their secrets.

We knew so much about Amy Winehouse but we sat back and watched the spectacle. “But Paisley, she was soooo talented.” Yup. And countless other talented singer/songwriters who would never pollute their bodies with anything save the occasional Happy Meal will never be heard.

By allowing Ms. Winehouse to go to work (meaning making a shitload of money)  enabled her to go back to that which she was rehabilitated from. As an artist who has struggled I can honestly say that we (artists) have a lot of time on our hands  and a huge availability of tempting distractions as well. Add a few billion dollars to that machine and watch it go!

I say “Use Drugs, Stop Being Able To Follow Your Passion.”  Enough is enough. NO MORE DEAD ROCK STARS. It just isn’t cool anymore. How many of our heroes have to die before we intervene?

My heart goes out to the people that loved Ms. Winehouse and to the lady herself. Young, beautiful, talented, creative, different, defiant… The tribute goes on and on. A lot of us did drugs. And a lot of us stopped. Too many of us died before we could. And now another child is lost.

Don’t make this ok. Don’t make it cool. Stop calling it tragic-as that implies a helplessness. At any time, anyone can turn to Jesus for deliverance and He will save them. I’m not saying it is easy-it never is easy when we make something created bigger in our lives than The Creator.

And I’m not being trite either. My friend and family know my struggles and there is not a single person who dines at my table that thinks it’s ok, cool, or expected that a multi-millionaire rock star is still doing drugs.

 Imagine Donald Trump smoking a joint. Or Billy Graham snorting cocaine. Or Jesus shooting heroin.

 Ridiculous. Laughable. Pathetic.

 We have to stop giving permission to people to commit the sins that Jesus died for.  And we have to stop immortalizing people who die from them.  I mean no disrespect to Amy Winehouse. I’m very sorry if any of this comes off like that. I despise the fact that people will make money of her death, as they did her life while she was killing herself for our amusement.