From Overdose to Underground: Anna Nicole Smith

While tortured sex symbol and reality TV star Anna Nicole Smith may have finally found peace six feet under, the earthly courts of Los Angeles are newly alive with post-mortem mayhem. On September 8, 2007, the 39-year-old former playmate died in a Florida hotel room from an overdose of prescription drugs. According to , "Smith had prescriptions for 44 medications under at least nine aliases at the time of her death… A Florida medical examiner found nine medications in her system and labeled her death the result of ‘acute combined drug intoxication.' " Though charged earlier this year in the death of Anna Nicole, in light of recent findings in the ongoing investigation, CNN reports that Smith's psychiatrist Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, internist Sandeep Kapoor, and lawyer and lover Howard Stern, are now "charged with an illegal conspiracy to prescribe, administer and dispense controlled substances to an addict. Stern faces 11 felony counts, while the doctors were charged with six each." All three have pleaded not guilty.

But as Howard K. Stern, Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, and Dr. Sandeep Kapoor entered Los Angeles Superior Court Wednesday to formally hear the charges, someone seemed to have anesthetized the real issue. As we all point fingers at the people who penned and pawned her prescriptions, we seem to forget the real cause of death, the dosage diva herself: Anna Nicole Smith.

They don't want to feel pain, they're moody, anxious, can't sleep, have nightmares—we get it. Fame comes at a chilling price and those that seek it are often already one Clonazepam away from stability. But with enough silver to seduce a Scientologist into writing a script, it seems the pharmaceutical perks of celebrity—from Heath Ledger to Michael Jackson to Anna Nicole Smith—are a diagnosis for doom. And as great talents poisons themselves to purgatory—probably with an IV still intact and more than one pill bottle in the pocket—the public no longer bats a mortal eye. Are we sad? Sure. Do we think it tragic? Certainly. Unusual? No way. While we may have lined the streets to mourn Michael and sent our prayers to the children of Anna Nicole, in a place just behind the mourning, in the spaces of condolence, was the very honest feeling, "It was going to happen sooner or later." The truth is, it has become typical for the famous to become infamous as they are carted away in body bags, leaving behind an alarmed coroner and an office of psychiatrists clutching their licenses.

The questions that boggle the public's brains are endless: Why are stars so quick to swallow cocktails? Why did the psychiatrist/s prescribe so much and so many? With so many employees, why didn't anyone catch on? And for those that did, why didn't they take more drastic measures? Where were their families?

While it is up to the courts to decide who is to blame, with each star's pill-popping passing, it seems fame can be measured in milligrams.