Michael Jackson Death…or simply “Put to Sleep?”
Michael Jackson will go down in the history books defining one of the greatest dichotomies: equal parts as the world’s greatest entertainer and on the flip side, one of the saddest, most grief-stricken, enigmatic figures to dominate the world on-and-off the stage for the better part of four decades. This one and only King of Pop was about to attempt one of the greatest comebacks of all time – 50 concerts starting July 13 at London’s famed 02 arena. Then his life was cut shockingly — or was it just mysteriously? — either way, it was cut short.
We now know that Jackson died at UCLA Medical Center after being stricken at his rented home in the posh Los Angeles neighborhood of Holmby Hills. Sources including his now tarnished “personal doctor,” Dr. Conrad Murray, have said he may have suffered respiratory arrest before eventually succumbing to cardiac arrest, a condition that can lead to death if not treated within five minutes.
"Cardiac arrest refers broadly to when your heart just no longer pumps blood," says Dr. Morgan Poncy, co-founder of Sunrise Detox in Lake Worth, Florida. Dr. Poncy completed his internship and residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. While continuing his private practice he became licensed to administer Suboxone, a proven, highly successful, revolutionary opiate detoxification method. He has subsequently treated more than 3,000 patients using Suboxone, more than any other physician inside the United States. After reading this, I knew I’d found the right guy so I called him up, and begged him for a face-to-face. Despite him, his wife and four children being smack in the middle of a move, Dr. Poncy succumbed to my pleadings. I drove up to Jupiter, just north of Palm Beach, Florida for the interview. Dr. Poncy, himself, has never treated Michael Jackson directly, but basically because of his extensive knowledge of addiction, and detoxification I thought he’d have some cogent and perceptive thoughts on Mr. Jackson’s life, addiction and death. Also, because of Dr. Poncy’s extensive work with addicts, I was curious to hear about how Mr. Jackson’s wealth and power might have played a role in his active addiction while living and his subsequent death.
I was surprised to find Dr. Poncy to be this handsome, laidback, intelligent, “cool” kind of a guy — very unassuming and confident with out being like “Hey, I’m a doctor little girl, back off and let me tell you how it is.” It’s so funny because journalists are usually such arrogant pricks. We come off as these cross-grained, overly educated, verbally-on-crack, recalcitrant puffed-up-jerks. Most of us are alcoholics or Domestic Violence People, or worse. It’s ever-so ironic that we have these sweeping judgments of sources before we even meet them. When we can barely get out of bed in the morning. Sad. Anyway, Poncy was fascinating. Thank God.
We first began talking about Mr. Jackson’s alleged, daily “cocktail” of drugs, including, according to The London Sun, a mixture of opiates, benzodiazepines, and barbiturates such as Oxyxontin Vicodin, Dilaudid, Xanax, Zoloft, Demerol, Vistaril, Paxil, and Prilosec. Dr. Poncy’s take was two-fold: someone taking that mixture with an unknown dosage of pills on a daily basis is probably not just suffering from a pain condition, if even suffering from a pain condition at all. Instead they're probably self-medicating some kind of an underlying mood disorder. “Because Michael Jackson was said to also suffer from an eating disorder or some kind of self-image disorder…he may have even been suffering from bi-polar disorder…that’s when this all gets much, much more complicated. He will have gone through periods of time when he absolutely hated himself and hated the way he looked. This is when his addiction would spike and he would be ingesting even more and more medications in higher and higher dosages.” Dr. Poncy went on to explain that addicts with underlying mood disorders are often drawn to opiates because it gives them a “therapeutic window” where they feel a wave of calm. “The challenge with this type of so-called therapeutic window, of course,” says Poncy, “is that window becomes narrower and narrower and the appearance of the window because less and less frequent. Thereby the addict has to up the dosage and increase the frequency.”
I asked Dr. Poncy about the role of Mr. Jackson’s wealth and power.
“Ah. That’s where it gets very, very tricky. That’s where the ‘private doctor’ becomes the pawn or the so-called conduit — some even say ‘dealer’ — I want to be clear here … not all private doctors but a lot of them. It was a similar situation with the rapper Eminem. When a professional ballplayer, movie star, singer/songwriter … an icon of any form who can afford a private doctor, that wealthy icon essentially begins administering his own care. I believe the converse of a ‘private doctor,’ a respected doctor with a private practice, affiliated with a respectable hospital … if a client asks him for a hefty shot of Demerol at 10 o’clock in the morning with no guarantees of what that client has taken on his own accord earlier in the day … he’d be less inclined to administer that shot. That’s just the way it goes.”
Other physicians I spoke to — 100 percent without exception — agreed with Dr. Poncy’s theory on this and I spoke to 11 physicians, one a private doctor himself! (Which was a little odd, to be frank.)
There is no question that Mr. Jackson’s death brought a tragic end to a long, bizarre, sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s, when he was popular music’s premier all-around performer. He was a uniter of black and white music who shattered the race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled even more on stage. His 1982 album “Thriller” — which included the blockbuster hits “Beat It,” “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” — is the best-selling album of all time, with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide.
Steven Spielberg told Entertainment Tonight over the weekend that “Michael Jackson’s talent, his wonderment and his mystery made him legend.” Justin Timberlake, one of today’s most popular music icons, who many say mimics many of The King of Pop’s moves, was quoted saying: “We have lost a genius and a true ambassador of not only Pop music, but of all music.” Quincy Jones, who produced “Thriller”capped the many quotes with: “Taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don’t have the words … He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I’ve lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him.”
Which brings up the question: Was it a tragic error, or an overdose? If it was indeed an overdose, was it accidental or by desire...subconscious or mercy-killing?
I asked Dr. Poncy if he were to headline this article what would the title be? He promptly replied: “Michael Jackson: Put To Sleep.” He further explained that when vets put down dogs or cats they essentially “overdose” the animals with a shot of opiates, barbiturates — or a combination of the two — and the dog will die comfortably in his sleep. I asked Dr. Poncy about Dr. Kevorkian — the man famed for assisting terminally ill patients commit suicide. Poncy explained that prescient to the Jackson case, if it were indeed the case, Kevorkian never “put his own patients ‘to sleep.' He simply set up the three IVs with the three tubes of ‘medications’ and allowed the ‘patient’ to press the one button that would trigger the drip causing a completely painless process of ‘putting the patient to sleep.’”
Perhaps Michael Jackson did not want to do the grueling, physically exhausting 50-show “final” concert tour. After all, he was recently photographed being pushed in a wheelchair by his eldest sun with his face covered by a surgical mask. He was rumored to, once again, be in failing health. It was clear he wanted to go out with a bang but we all construed from that … that he wanted to “go out” with a “professional” bang. Did he have something else in mind? The 1 million tickets to his last hurrah had sold out in 5 hours. The pressure was on. Did he want – subconsciously or not – another way to go?
posted by J.P. @ 10:02 PM
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