Prince’s avoidable death shines light on a deeper problem
It highlighted how whether someone is a grotesquely rich superstar or a homeless person on the streets, the drug pushers who fuel their deaths very rarely face the justice they deserve.
The opioid crisis that blights both our nations requires immediate attention, and not just because Prince died.
Last year saw the number of drug-related deaths recorded in England and Wales hit an all-time high.
The Office for National Statistics said 3,744 people – 2,572 men and 1,172 women – were fatally poisoned in 2016, 70 more than the previous year and the highest number since comparable statistics began in 1993.
In America, some 60,000 die each year from a drugs overdose.
If a terrorist killed that many people, we would find focus and we should do the same with this lethal threat.
But while authorities must fight the war on the drugs, equally those around addicts such as Prince, have a part to play.
None of us know the kind of things those close to him did to warrant their place within his inner circle or how deep their friendship was but one thing is clear – several betrayed him.
According to documents from the investigation, the Purple Rain singer had nearly 68 micrograms of fentanyl per litre of blood in his system at the time of his death.
It was 22 times the amount absorbed by a cancer patient who regularly wears a prescription fentanyl patch to manage pain.
There is no question that many of the drugs that killed Prince, hidden in aspirin bottles on a bedside table, were obtained illegally.
With so many people constantly clinging to his fame, someone surely knows how they ended up there.
But according to investigators, none of his supposed friends – the people who’d you thought were looking out for him – talked.
No wonder his family are disgusted.
“I’m outraged by people in Prince’s inner circle not speaking up about what really happened. Those people who were around him when he died, they know what went on,” Prince’s cousin, Charles Smith, said.
And he’s right. Their silence is shameful.
True friends are the ones we tell our deepest secrets to or who we can call on at whatever time of day or night for help and they’ll be there.
Then there are friends and acquaintances.
But it seems Prince had a fourth group around him – enablers who masqueraded as friends but in truth only wanted to use his fame or fortune.
It is not unusual for those in the public eye.
With the fame Prince had he would certainly have been sur- rounded by a lot of people.
So it is even more tragic now – since it was revealed his death was entirely avoidable – his supposed friends around him at the time could not, or even worse would not, save him from his downfall. DONALD Trump has said North Korea wants to hold a high-level meeting “as soon as possible” while describing Kim Jong Un as “very open” and “very honourable”.
The President’s dramatic reversal on his opinion of the North Korean leader came as he held talks at the White House with French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday.
Previously Trump had repeatedly mocked Kim, calling him “Little Rocket Man”.
His unrelenting, aggressive rhetoric towards the despot was the fuel that brought Washington and Pyongyang to the brink of war.
Now Trump, in a major U-turn, appears to be his best friend.
Let us hope though that the world’s unlikeliest bromance lasts.
It is even more tragic since his death was entirely avoidable