Why Heart Conditions And Cocaine Don't Mix -- The Ike Turner Story
I doubt if Ike Turner was the oldest person to ever die of a coke overdose but he has to be right up there.
The San Diego County Coroner released its report today which stated that "Ike abused cocaine, and that's what resulted in the cocaine toxicity," said Paul Parker, chief investigator at the medical examiner's office. The medical examiner's office also listed hypertensive cardiovascular disease and pulmonary emphysema as "significant and contributing factors" to Turner's death, Parker said.
So, if I am reading this right, Ike suffered from some severe heart problems and was hacking up his lungs yet he still was doing coke enough to overdose. That is living like a rock star. To knowingly take a drug that jacks up your heart about a million percent while suffering from severe heart problems is really just asking for trouble.
Ike was 76 and so you can't say that he didn't lead a full life and maybe this was how he always dreamed of going. I'm sure Tina Turner would have preferred him dying by some type of slow agonizing torture, but being the class act she is, only acknowledged that Ike had indeed died and wasn't coming back.
In an interview he gave a few years before his death, this is what Ike had to say about drugs. "My experience, man, with drugs — I can't say that I'm proud that I did drugs, but I'm glad I'm still alive to convey how I came through," he said. "I'm a good example that you can go to the bottom. ... I used to pray, `God, if you let me get three days clean, I will never look back.' But I never did get to three days. You know why? Because I would lie to myself. And then only when I went to jail, man, did I get those three days. And man, I haven't looked back since then."
I guess something changed to make him start looking back. Turner died on December 12th.
