Heath Ledger 'was probably a drug addict', says expert

Sydney, July 23 : Heath Ledger's consumption of drugs before his death indicates that he was probably an addict, according to America's best-known addiction expert.

In an interview, Los Angeles-based Dr Drew Pinsky said that the actor's drug intake was not a secret in Hollywood.

"There were people who were very concerned about his drug use in this town before he died," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Pinsky, as saying.

Head of Los Angeles' Las Encinas Hospital's department of chemical dependency services and a high-profile figure on American TV said that the 28-year-old actor was another casualty of a prescription drug abuse epidemic.

"We see this all the time. We have an absolute epidemic of patients dying exactly the way he died - drug addicts," Pinsky said.

"I don't know him, but I've never seen a patient die of that kind of reckless combination of medicine that wasn't a drug addict," Pinsky added.

ANI