Somehow we’ve crossed the line into it being the norm, like happened with sex in the 60’s. Rehab has become to drugs what the pill was to “free love” forty years ago.

It was a huge blessing River Phoenix and his family and loved ones that he died before the Internet changed celebrity culture. But there could be no other advertisement for the reality of drug use than if teens across the world had seen, within minutes, their idol die in the graphic, very horrific way River did, Were, God forbid, a young celebrity to die in such a manner today, while TMZ and Splash and X17 cameras were recording his or her every move, it could only serve as a deterrant, a wake-up call. No one would think that was in any way glamorous. This wasn’t Kurt Cobain’s tied sneaker and unbloodied pants leg. This was a really cool, young human being playing the role of the Frying Egg in the infamous 80’s commercial that said “This is your brain on drugs.”

Nothing will ever stop all people, especially teens and twentysomethings, from using drugs. But it may take this recent combined acceptance in our society of both drug use and the constant presence of cameras to finally show us what drugs have the potential to rob from us. Seeing a real-life drug death in real-time on the internet is going to happen eventually. I wonder if at that point our passive acceptance of publicly freaky behavior without consequences (Pete Doherty, anyone? Or Lindsay Lohan, before rehab/?) and outright lies (Paris Hilton saying with a straight face she never used drugs) will reveal itself to be,at the very least, utterly ridiculous and at worst, extremely dangerous.

He knowingly snorted a speedball and that was a choice he made; however, it’s reasonable to assume - particularly since he was not physically addicted and in need of a hit in order to get well - that if he’d known it was going to stop his heart at the moment of inhalation, he would have dumped it into the toilet. But in that moment he didn’t think. It was being given to him by a friend he trusted, but addicts and/or reckless kids don’t stop to think about who that person got it from. River’s rock star drug buddy clearly never meant to hurt him; he was as ignorant as River in not considering that with street drugs, you never know what you’re going to get.

Probably thinking in that crazy addict way that he was being polite in offering River the first hit, the friend’s life was spared, and ultimately we’ve gotten some damn great music and insights into musicianship because of it. We’ve also lost an equally special, unique, and creative person because of the luck of (or misfortune) of the draw.

River would be 37 next month. He was just a kid. The fact that he was exposed to the fast life of Hollywood made him more immature for his age, not less. People who say “he was 23 and a Hollywood type, he knew what he was doing” probably realize now - hopefully - that his celebrity led to his death in numerous ways, from creating a lack of personal resonsibility for anything but acting to having teenage siblings terrified of damaging his nice guy reputation and therefore, at that time, career. (This was still when young actors were ashamed of their drug use and felt a personal responsibility for the i