News

Pete Doherty Considers Getting Implant

Babyshambles/ex-Libertines frontman Pete Doherty has a new idea for combating his seemingly multiple drug addictions: permanently installing a different sort of chemical in his system. A newly pioneered procedure will insert a fingertip-sized device in Doherty, which will subsequently suppress any opiates-inducted euphoria.

Doherty pled guilty to possession of marijuana, morphine, crack cocaine and heroin in January of this year. Since that time, he has been arrested on at least seven separate occasions, marking him as rock and roll's (and every British tabloid's) current poster child for drug problems. But at least one London judge doesn't think that Doherty is a lost cause.

"You are going in the right direction," Judge Jane McIvor told Doherty, after he'd laid out his plans to install the chemical implant in the coming weeks. "It's not easy, especially in your circumstances. I appreciate that entirely. I think your concentration should be, within six months of the order, to get a negative test." He was then told to report back to court in September to show off his progress -- or lack thereof.

The prognosis wasn't so cheery from some of Doherty's peers and predecessors in the music industry. New York Dolls frontman David Johansen had some words of warning for Doherty, saying that the troubled 27-year-old reminded him of Johansen's late bandmate, Johnny Thunders. "He's a great talent," Johansen said. "But heroin will take him away from the songs just like Johnny, because she is a bitch, and that's what she does."

--The ARTISTdirect Staff
07.17.06