Whitney Houston Used Cocaine in Hotel Room Before Drowning?
A cocaine-like substance has been found in Whitney Houston's Beverly Hilton hotel room where she drowned on the afternoon on Feb. 11, providing further evidence that the drug was a main factor that led to the pop singer's death.
Houston's substance abuse problems have been well documented, and a coroner's report on March 23 revealed that chronic use of cocaine had led to approximately a 60 percent occlusion in the arteries, which deprived her of oxygen and inflamed her heart disease, leading to her accidental drowning.
Now, new findings announced this morning have revealed that the singer might have been using cocaine in her hotel room right before her death. On the bathroom counter, investigators discovered a small spoon which had a "crystal like substance," while a drawer in her room had a white powdery substance, the Associated Press reported.
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Toxicology reports also found that Houston had marijuana, Xanax, the muscle relaxant Flexeril, and the allergy medication Benadryl in her system. The pop singer also apparently had a hole in her nose, which has been described by investigators as a sign of a history of substance abuse.
Dr. Michael Fishbein of the UCLA Medical Center shared that it was very likely the heavy substance abuse is what really caused the singer's death.
"How does someone die in a bathtub?" he asked. "It's not like they're swimming the English Channel. So she had to have been incapacitated. And I think that was due to the cocaine causing an abnormal cardiac rhythm."
"It has been [alcohol, marijuana, pills, cocaine] at times," Houston famously admitted to Diane Sawyer in a 2002 interview. "Nobody makes me do anything I don't want to do. It's my decision; the biggest devil is me. I'm my best friend and my worst enemy."
Before her death, Houston starred in a remake of the film "Sparkle," and had been preparing for a party in honor of Clive Davis, her mentor who helped launch her career.
The pop star's funeral took place Feb 18. at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J.
