Dr nick ist sowas von unschuldigHier ein auszug aus marty lackers erste buch 1979 Patsy seine frau erzählt.

However, Marty's wife let it all hang out in 1979's 'Portrait of a Friend.'

"It went on an on for a period of more than ten years. Placidyl was the god that made him (Marty) feel good. He couldn't walk without staggering, and he fell down more than any human being I've ever seen, but he kept it up until we were so broke he could no longer pay for the pills. The Placidyl was supported by Valmid, Dalmane, Valium, Darvon, Darvocett, Empirin, Codeine No. 3 and other assorted pills."

"There were so many pills that one closet shelf was filled with empty bottles which, for some reason, Marty saved. He saved the empty bottles until one night when the wife of one of the guys called. She told Marty she was calling the authorities and sending them to our house as well as to Graceland and their own place."

"The source of the pills was Elvis' great friend and physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos. I absolutely hated what that man had done to my husband under the guise of medicine. My husband was addicted to drugs, our lives were being ruined and Nichopoulos kept the pills coming as fast as Marty wanted them."

"I went to Graceland to see Nichopoulos and told him to stop the drugs. I told him I was going to report them all if anything happened to Marty. I begged and threatened, and Dr. Nichopoulos laughed at me."

Marty and Patsy's co-author, Leslie S. Smith, interviewed Sonny West for the book. This would have been in '78 or '79. He read Sonny the following:

"Quantities during a forty-six month period of time, that's two months less than four years: 6,464 Placidyls, 3204 Darvon, 1508 Hycomine, 708 Empirin Codeine #3, 500 Dalmane, 400 Valium, 216 Darvocet, 200 Valmid and assorted pills which are not important, total 13,291 pills, in roughly 1300 days. The average is ten per day."

Sonny asks if that's all from Dr. Nick, and are they all for Elvis? Smith says they are from Dr. Nick, but none of them were prescribed to Elvis. They were ALL for Marty. Sonny makes the logical argument that if Marty was getting that many, Elvis was getting far more.

Dr. Nick's defense, where Elvis was concerned, was that the pills were prescribed for a 200-person travelling crew, and were destroyed after each tour. How does that excuse hold up, based on the number of drugs Marty took?

Please understand, I have nothing against Marty Lacker. I'm grateful that he is such a passionate advocate for Elvis. And, I agree with his feeling that Dr. Nick would have been better off walking away. Had Nick left, another doctor (or two, or three) might have taken the fall when Elvis finally died. But that's hindsight.

These folks that were in Elvis' inner circle were sworn to secrecy during his life. The minute Elvis died (excluding Red, Sonny and Dave, who jumped the gun by a year) they all started talking. You need to go as far back as you can to read the accounts as they were written before embellishment and the passage of time obscured the facts. (That's why it's tough to take a 100% side in the Marty vs. George debate. These guys were once like brothers to each other. Now, there is 30 years of bad blood. The truth lies somewhere between the extremes.)