Michael Jackson's death highlights celebrity drug abuse problem

"At one point, he started asking me for a prescription. He knew I was a physician. I had a licence. He asked me for a prescription for a narcotic. And I said 'what the heck do you want a narcotic prescription for?'" Chopra said.

"It suddenly dawned on me that Michael was already taking these and that he had probably a number of doctors who were giving him these prescriptions. That's how he got addicted," he said.

Chopra, a trained cardiologist himself, spoke of a "huge problem" Hollywood had with "celebrity doctors who not only initiate people into the drug experience but then they perpetuate it so that people become dependent on them.

"It's become a culture with celebrity doctors who in one sense get a sense of importance by hanging around with celebrities. I think this is something that really should be investigated because it's a disease. This is a strange addiction. You cannot get these pills or injections unless a physician prescribes them, and (Jackson) had this bunch of enabling doctors who were, in a sense, criminals. And they get away with it half the time - and I hope they don't this time," he said.

Grace Rwaramba, 42, former nanny to Jackson's three children also said there were several occasions when she had to pump the singer's stomach to remove dangerous cocktails of drugs.

"I had to pump his stomach many times," Rwaramba, who was dismissed six months ago, said. "He always mixed so much of it. There was one period that it was so bad that I didn't let the children see him...He always ate too little and mixed too much."