Gestión del Cambio

“KURT AND COURTNEY”

Before I tell you how much I admire Broomfield’s tenacity and courage in developing and producing this project, I want to clarify an extremely important issue brought up in one of my interviews in the film and a subsequent response from a medical doctor in the U.K.

MEDICAL EVIDENCE REFUTED? During one of my interviews, I discussed Cobain’s heroin blood level with Broomfield along with the research we’ve done indicating he would have been immediately incapacitated, therefore unable to pick up the shotgun and shoot himself. Broomfield argues that Kurt had a gigantic habit and therefore may have had a high tolerance level.

I challenged Broomfield, on camera, to show me just one similar case where it could be demonstrated that anyone, including a hard core heroin addict, could withstand this same heroin dosage without being immediately incapacitated. Broomfield then displays a still photograph of a man balancing on one leg as he narrates:

“Tom Grant’s assertion that 1.52 milligrams of heroin per liter of

blood would have incapacitated Kurt was discounted by Dr. Colin Brewer, formerly director of Westminster Hospital. He gave us this color slide of a patient balancing easily on one leg, who had taken the equivalent of over twice the amount taken by Kurt. In any event, Dr. Brewer said it would take 30 seconds to one minute for the heroin to circulate to take effect, leaving ample time to firea gun.”

Now, in case you misunderstood the blood level figures, we’re talking about 1.52 mgs per liter. To reach this blood level, Cobain would have had to inject an amount of heroin in excess of 225 mgs, all at one time. This is three times a lethal, (deadly) dose!

If you’ve seen the film, I hope you paid close attention to the wording in Broomfield’s statements:

Note here that Broomfield did not say anything about this patient INJECTING any substance directly into a vein. Also note he did not say that HEROIN was the drug this patient had “taken.”

The audience is left to assume Broomfield was talking about a patient who had injected twice the amount of heroin as Cobain had injected?

The fact is, the man seen in Broomfield’s film balancing on one leg had swallowed 1,000 mgs of methadone, he did not inject anything, much less heroin, directly into his veins. Kurt Cobain was injected with heroin!

Furthermore, Dr. Brewer’s comments about the circulation time being 30 seconds to 1 minute were in reference to morphine, not heroin!

Prior to the completion of his film, Broomfield faxed me a copy of Dr. Brewer’s response to our medical research. I wrote a response to Dr. Brewer’s comments and later faxed it back to Broomfield. Following are excerpts from my detailed response to Broomfield’s fax.

Nick,

I can understand a person with little or no knowledge of the effects of heroin having a hard time understanding this. But it’s difficult for me to understand how any competent medical doctor could be so confused. Dr. Brewer’s response to these very simple issues borders on the absurd.

You wrote:

“For instance, he, (Dr. Brewer), has a slide of a patient balancing on one leg an hour after swallowing 1,000 mg of methadone at a time when his blood level was 4,000 meg/liter.”

The key words here are METHADONE and SWALLOWING.

This kind of response to a serious inquiry is offensive. Any doctor should know there’s a huge difference between heroin and methadone. Methadone is weaker than morphine. Methadone use is totally irrelevant to this case!

Any reputable doctor should also know that the ingestion of almost any drug, by swallowing, produces nowhere near the immediate results that injecting the same drug intravenously will produce. The simple fact that Dr. Brewer is even comparing these criteria indicates he lacks a fundamental understanding of the matters in question.

In another reference to Dr. Brewer’s response, you wrote:

“It takes two circulations for morphine to affect the body, that is 30 seconds to 1mm. This would give Kurt enough time to be able to pull a gun on himself.”

The circulation time of morphine has nothing to do with this case Nick. In fact, once injected, it takes 7 to 9 minutes for heroin to even become morphine!

But we’re talking about heroin injected intravenously here, not morphine which is often swallowed or injected subcutaneously, (not in a vein). Therefore discussions pertaining to morphine and/or methadone are not only irrelevant but also terribly misleading.

While a massive dose of morphine may take a sufficient amount oftime to display effects, a massive dose of heroin, injected directly into a vein, will incapacitate within seconds. Bodies with needles still in their, arms are a common phenomenon in heroin overdoses. In other words, they’re knocked out before they even finished the injection!

Heroin is stronger, faster, deadlier… and DIFFERENT than morphine! Apple with apples. Oranges with oranges. That’s all we’re asking here Nick.

Tom

Unfortunately, Nick Broomfield appears to discredit some very strong medical evidence with his inaccurate and misleading statements about Cobain’s heroin blood level. Then, he uses this misinformation as his basis to state that he no longer believes in the conspiracy theory!

Why did Broomfield do this? I can’t say for sure. There are many possibilities including several that are understandable and innocent of any deliberate deception.

Other than this one issue, Nick did such a great job with this film that I’m going to give him the benefit of doubt. I’m going to believe he didn’t understand the medical evidence and didn’t have the time to do adequate research.

I was out of town during much of the time we were trying to communicate on this issue so it took some time for me to respond Nick about Dr. Brewer’s comments. It’s possible the film had already been edited and it was too late to make the corrections.

Now that we’ve got that straight, let’s move on.

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