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Winehouse Over The Limit

The tragic news, despite what we had been told to expect, is that Amy Winehouse was not "clean" when she died.  Instead, as the coroner told us, she was five times over the legal limit, three days into a vodka binge.  According to her GP, who visited her soon before she died at home, she was "tipsy" but still lucid, and talking of her future.  Alcohol changed that situation quickly enough.  It's a killer, and always has been - and needs to be licensed and consumed with more care than the UK drinks industry allows.  One day, the scandal of our age will be the way in which tobacco and booze were sold over the counter to us, wasting the billions that could bail out the NHS.  I saw my maternal uncle, Edward, drink himself to death - much like Winehouse, one night he went across the street, and bought a bottle from the shop that had promised us never to sell him any liquor - went home, and drank it, dying in bed a few hours later.  Like Winehouse, he was brilliant, and sensitive, and funny, and kind - but also like her, he had a disease.

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