CNN

Physicians are already regulated. Many are arrested every year for similar crimes.

How's this for a "wakeup call"..... Your teens WILL experiment with drugs. Your teens WILL experiment with sex. People WILL die tragically and unexpectedly.

We are criminalizing EVERYTHING in this supposed land of the free. And what has been the effect? Your teens used to experiment with a few beers and a joint. NOW they experiment with highly addictive presciption drugs and heroin.

This is the price of the "War on drugs".

Please PLEASE stop trying to control our every move. The authoritarians who started this drug war back in the Regan era are only making matters worse.

Many Americans are simply not brave enough to live free.

If you are a dem politician, you can have a life history of abusing drugs, enter rehab, abuse drugs, enter rehab- repeating the cycle, and still remain a dem politician. Patrick Kennedy is a politician and should hold higher standards over a private citizen radio talk show host like Rush.

There is no difference between MJ abusing prescription drugs and George W. Bush abusing alcohol and cocaine in his younger years. Both are wrong.

Wake-up call? No kidding!!! Please go back and count the number of celebrity drug abuse cases in the past year.

Wake up call!! What were they doing sleeping? Celebrity overdose is nothing new. This is kind of like when they misread the economy.

Um, we've been getting 'wake up calls' for decades. We should have already gotten out of the bed by now...

An average person has KNOWN about drug pushing Dr.'s and prescription drug abuse for well over a decade, if not many decades... and it takes Michael Jackson's death for a "wake-up" call? How sad and pathetic! Give us an 800 # to report these drug pushers because I had Dr.'s that would not take NO for an answer and had to start returning all their un-used pill "samples" to them on the next visit! P.S. – It's too hard to find a Dr. that accepts Medicare/Medicaid so finding another doctor isn't an easy alternative!

So careless and maddening that it takes a "star" to wake such greedy and corrupt systems up in this country!

How is someone known to be a serious drug addict for 20-odd years a surprise much less a wake up call? The only surprise is that he didn't die sooner.

MJ, Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger, Judy Garland, the list goes on.
It's like cigarettes and alcohol. You can talk about the dangers until you're blue in the face, but people will think it can't happen to them.
Especially people in the spotlight like actors and athletes who have so many people around them who just want to make money off of them.

Britney Spears is probably alive right now because her parents were courageous enough to take legal steps to get her away from the 'agent/manager' and that paparazzi bozo.

If you abuse prescription drugs, you can get your own radio or TV show so you can spread hate and fear across America on a daily basis. Right Rush??

I totally agree with the article. Also, hospitals, doctors (dermatologist & dentist included), anesthesiologist, pharmacist should keep better records of their meds and who is getting them. Maybe finger printing would come in handy here so patients won't use other peoples names. What a time for this to come up when a universal health plan is being considered. It would benefit everyone.

It is absolutely absurded to even think of having a resolution in honor of Michael Jackson. He was not the kind of role model for anyone on this planet. Look at all the immoral things he did while living. He obviously didn't enjoy life or he would not have killed himself with his bad habits. He wasn't even happy with his color.
Let's move on to something better to talk about. His life is over, those that want to remember him do so without making a big deal out of it.

I wish big brother would learn to mind their own business. But religious nuts have caused this to happen, a mixture of church and state, not a good recipe.

Prescription drugs in the hands of people unable to handle them isone of the biggest problems we have right now. Michael Jackson is just one in a long line of people who had too easy an access to anything he wanted, and paid the ultimate price with his life.

I think it's cowardly of Congress not to vote on a resolution. Taking a vote is American. If there are some people who want to vote for or against the resolution, so be it.

Michael was a great humanitarian, and no one can deny that. Pelosi benefits from a state where Michael gave a lot of support, and she threw him under the bus.

Trust me, they will have to revisit this again. Especially when their favorite "celebrity" has a turn.

Please dont tell Limbaugh.

Are you kidding me? This is the new Drug Czar? CNN might as well as interviewed the ceo's from the pharmaceutical companies, if they wanted the same old propaganda, which blames the wrong people. The new “czar” is as unprepared to represent this national disgrace of medical incompetency, pharmaceutical greed, and regulatory corruption, as his predecessor was. And the media doesn't help, when they don't know what the core issues are. Most people know that the “illegal” use of these prescription drugs is not nearly as devestating as the “legal” use and abuse. They also know that “overtreatment” has caused more harm than the“undertreatment” of pain EVER did. These drugs come from one source; Pharmaceutical companies and doctors. And the FDA enables it. Try to keep that in mind

There will always be people with enough money to buy their way into and out of anything. I wish Michael Jackson hadn't chosen to fall to prescription drugs to numb him from the toxic people that he allowed in his life. On that same note, shame on the physicians who enabled the abuse and took his money in exchange for his life. We need tougher laws on dispensing prescriptions drugs, digital databases that keep track of who precribed who what, why, and when, and most importantly, stronger punishments for doctors who are happy to sacrifice their careers and worse – their ethics – to make an extra buck, especially at the very expense of the people they swore to protect.

Geez can we just bury the guy already?

As far as innocent until proven guilty comment made at the memorial... Two letter came to mind when that was said... O.J. Seriously, if any of you hponestly believe that Michael jackson was innocent then O.J. must have honestly been innocent as well.

More like a wake up call that more regulation, and prosecution of those giving drugs out like candy, of doctors needs to happen.

Tim is one of those people who constantly rants about Liberals and fawns over Palin......He's not someone I would take seriously....He has his own issues.....

Celebrity doctors need to be reigned in.......It is nothing short of murder to convince someone that they can get a good night's sleep by going under.......What if the doctor falls asleep, or goes to fix a sandwich and the person needs his help? Furthermore, how could he have known about Diprivan/Propofol unless a doctor told him? That drug is for "in hospital" use only.....It's a tragedy that didn't need to happen.....But as Stevie Wonder said, "Nothing can keep us from destiny." He's at peace now....I pray his children can survive the Tims of this world......Interesting that he receives more criticism in America than anywhere else in the world (except London's smucky 'The Sun' – a tabloid skank).......

Why does it take a celebrity death to realize the dangers of abusing rX drugs? Didn't we have the same realization when Heath Ledger died?

First off what in the world is a drug Czar? Is it a cabinet position? Why do we now have more Czars than the USSR ever did? Has anyone bothered to look up the definition for Czar? Is it just me or does it seem strange that we now have people in our government more powerful than cabinet appointees that go through no vetting process other than a simply head nod by the one who thinks he is the "chosen one" and therefore above the rules of the US for appointees. Wake up America!!! Wake up media and quit referring to these people as Czars...

I don't think the death of Michael Jackson will bring anything to the forefront. The deaths of other celebrity junkies didn't change anything.

It is not a "wake up" call. Most people know prescription drugs are dangerous. Yes, there is always a danger of someone becoming dependent, but this should not be an opportunity for the government to meddle in the ability to obtain them when needed. I think they're just looking for such an excuse.

cnn needs a wake call about lou dobbs ,bill bennett,(cnn)has overdosed on these non-factors.(cnn)needs a prescription of new moderators. and (cnn) needs to lay off mj,for ratings and show some of the class they have lost. stop using mj as an example,those 2 divinding factors on cnn ,need a chill pill or an exit. it a shame that (cnn)does not hear.leave mj alone for awhile ,and stop putting his family thru this nonsense.enough is enough, (cnn)has become (fox news) it is a sad turn, for a network that once had some class.

I like the idea of prescription drug monitoring programs. I thought they were already in place in most states.

As far as our young people are concerned, it's up to the parents to keep an eye on their prescriptions.

Duh - anyone in this country that waited for this in order to be awakened, better just go back to sleep.

The alarm rang about 30 or 40 years ago.

A wake up call to who? The Hollywood elite who can afford to pay for private doctors to prescribe any medication they want?

Not a concern of mine, let's not waste another second worrying about it.

we lock up drug dealers, why don't we lock up the doctor feelgoods who are allowing this to happen. And what of the drug companies who advertise on TV that we need this or that med. We stopped booze and tobacco ads, we need to stop Big Pharma from turning us into a nation of addicts

Conspicuously absent from the list of drugs which cause these deaths is marijuana (Cannabis). It is now legal to use medcial marijuana in 13 states, with 7 others considering it, and the trend is toward more protection for this healthcare civil right. Thanks for all you do to help.

Yeah it is a wake up call. Prescription drugs kill and marijuana doesn't!! Chew on that for a while.

Prescription drugs and tobacco cause far more deaths than from use of illegal narcotics.
It is time to decriminalize, tax and regulate controlled substances to take away the profits from the cartels and allow U.S. farmers to grow industrial hemp.