Maybe it was born out of desperation (“I have to think of a way to get my coke fix without whipping a vial out of my nappy hair!”), or boredom (“Doing lines gets really old after a few years…”), but however she cooked up this idea doesn’t matter. Because she did.

Winehouse has recently purchased a cotton candy machine which she fills with her tasty coke/candy concoction.

Seriously, we can’t make this stuff up. We just wonder what tasty mixture she’ll think of next: Crack Fries? Ecstasy lollipops? Heroin hamburgers? Horse tranquilizer milkshakes?

Mmmm. Horse tranquilizer milkshakes….

[Photo courtesy of www.ninjadude.com]

While reading up on all the latest news, I stumbled across a statistic that I found shocking. According to the Los Angeles Times, accidental poisoning deaths, 95% of which are overdoses, rose sharply from 12,186 in 1999 to 20,950 in 2004. Prescription drugs, which are often casually prescribed and easy to get online, are behind the alarming rise, reports newser.com.

Here’s the kicker:

Overdoses of prescription drugs now kill more people than overdoses of heroin and cocaine combined!

I find that surprising. It seems that people are just now catching onto the hazards of prescription pills and popping one too many, not to mention how they mix with other pills and drugs.

I hope that in the future these scary stats will cause people to be more careful with their habits.

* Sure, this story is shocking, but I’m more intrigued by the fact that Japan has porn vending machines! (Mainichi Daily News)

* Learn and Earn? Seriously? Just how bad do I need to do in school to make the government want to pay me to do better? (11Alive.com)

* One NJ teacher is making his students parents do homework too. Sweet justice. (NYT)

* Doctors say smokers who are quitting should be treated in the same manner as heroin addicts. (The Independent)

* Woman finds rodent head in a can of beans and is offered $100 for it. She won’t take it. (Salt Lake Tribune)

Medically when the body is deprived of protein it becomes bloated, almost fat due to retention of water. As we see in photos form starving third world countries it is a common occurrence when the body suffers from a deficiency or lack of proper nutrition. But this is a Hollywood famine, starving in the finest of all restaurants while stowing a pharmacy away in your Balenciaga. In a world where every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger, we worship a culture of excess, fast food, binges and purges. Some children would even call Richie their idol; magazines promote her look as improved then attack her for being too skinny days later. Although anorexia is a disease it seems somehow unfair that the entire world is starving while America is on a crash diet.

In the fall of 2003 Nicole was arrested for Heroin possession and was sentenced to rehab. She claims that she has always been thin but gained weight while in the facility which would explain her appearance on The Simple Life shortly after. Over a period of three years Richie went from a healthy girl to a woman in the body of a child at 5’2’’ weighting just under 90lbs.

It was just a year ago that a 22 year old Brazilian model died on the runway, the horrific image of her collapse was a wake up call to the entertainment industry, what we consider fashionable could actually be a surefire death wish. Images of Nicole Richie running on the beach in a tiny blue bikini made the cover of magazines around the world, her bones poking through her hanging skin, it was so alarming people believed it to be photoshopped, contrived, and unreal. While some anorexics hide behind baggy clothes Nicole stripped down for photo ops, was this just a fashion statement, or a blatant cry for help?

Richie’s charismatic personality and undisputable humor made The Simple Life a hit show, distracting us from the conversational void of Paris Hilton, Nicole was more than just a sidekick she was in fact the entertainment. With the media monitoring her weight gains and losses it can’t be easy to maintain a healthy body image, it’s hard enough just flipping through the pages much less seeing yourself beside the unflattering blurbs.

The world can exhale, Paris Hilton is free. But it is Richie who will be up at bat next to battle her very own DUI case and may be the next to inhabit Paris’ old Lynwood stomping grounds. She will be battling her December arrest in which she was found driving the wrong way on an LA freeway in her 2005 Mercedes, volunteering information to officers Nicole confessed that she had taken vicodin and smoked marijuana leaving her disoriented before the incident. A dangerous and life threatening move, much worse in my opinion than Paris Hilton driving the correct way down Sunset after a few drinks, only time will tell if Nicole will also be made into an example like her pal. If her an boyfriend Joel Madden truly are expecting will her unborn child also serve as her get out of jail free card?

This season’s The Simple Life received little promotion. With Paris behind bars and Nicole awaiting trial it seems that even bad press is good press if you are a Hollywood socialite. If reports are true one can only hope that Nicole, pregnant or not will finally learn take care of herself not only for her child’s sake but for her own. Keep your fingers crossed and look forward to the plethora of future reality show possibilities; just think “The Simple Life: Motherhood”.

The underground drug world never ceases to amaze me. What will they come up with next? Milkshake crack? Thank God I’m lactose – intolerant.

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