Crack leads to soul singer's emphysema

Source: Agencies  |   2008-6-23  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

BRITISH soul singer Amy Winehouse has developed the lung condition emphysema and has been warned by doctors that she will die if she continues smoking drugs, her father said yesterday.

Mitch Winehouse said the incurable illness, which leaves sufferers struggling for breath, was diagnosed when his daughter, aged 24, had a series of health checks in hospital.

"The doctors have told her if she goes back to smoking drugs it won't just ruin her voice, it will kill her," he was quoted as saying in the Sunday Mirror. "The doctors have said that if she had continued the way she was going she could have ended up an invalid - she wouldn't have been able to breathe."

He added: "It's in its early stages, but had it gone on for another month they painted a very vivid picture of her sitting there like an old person with a mask on her face. With smoking the crack cocaine and the cigarettes, her lungs are all gunked up."