Dinapal - //I get the impression you believe that celebrities should just get on with their illegal activities and drugs must be kept under the carpet as long as they try to atone with their charitable donations. //
Then your impression is entirely false. I do not condone drug taking by anyone, famous or not, but neither do I condone the scurrilous exposure of in famous people, not as a 'public service', but because, as I have said, scandal sells papers.
If you are in the public eye and enjoy the fame it brings then you must surely expect, not only your talents to be bought to the attention of the public,but your misdeeds as well. //
No argument there at all, but lets not pretend they are brought to the attention of the public for any good reason. A fundamental lesson of tabloid journalism is learning the difference between 'the public interest' and what interests the public. Only one of those sells papers.
//There are some bright kids out there who will ask,"How come Whitney Houston,Elvis, the Geldhof family members,Jackson, Jackson Hutchence,etc etc etc who all die before their time?"
Why shouldn't they be told via the press? //
No reason at all - but do the press say "They were weak impressionable stupid people with too much money and too much exposure to the wrong people, and no-one to tell them no.? If they did that, I would have no issue at all, but they don't and that is my point.
// I don't condone using illegal non prescription drugs yet you say that MacCartney 'quite reasonably' said I won't tell if you don't.
I see nothing reasonable in trying to get a reporter to cover up an illegal act. //
Neither do I, but I think you are missing my point.
Mr McCartney didn't suggest that the journalist hide what he was doing, he simply shifted the responsibility to where it actually lay - if Mr McCartney didn't tell millions of people he took drugs, which he was willing not to do, then why should the journalist do it to sell papers?
Mr McCartney's, and Mr Michael's and Mr John's and anyone you want to list's drug use is their own business if done in private - but the papers interfere because it sells papers, and for no other reason.