Finally, some chemicals that might actually help Pete Doherty.
The Babyshambles frontman, who has been under lock and key more often than the Crown Jewels this year, told a London judge Thursday that he plans to have a chemical implant inserted into his abdomen to help him kick his drug habit.
Appearing at a hearing to assess his progress after pleading guilty in January to heroin, crack cocaine, morphine and marijuana possession (and then getting arrested seven times since, not counting various wrist-slaps), Doherty told Judge Jane McIvor that he planned to have the device implanted within two weeks. The gadget is about the size of a fingertip and is supposed to release a drug that prevents one from feeling the high caused by opiates.
Or, he could just not take opiates, but addiction's a tricky thing.
"You are going in the right direction," McIvor, who's still waiting for Doherty's first negative test result, told the 27-year-old rocker. "It's not easy, especially in your circumstances. I appreciate that entirely. I think your concentration should be, within six months of the order, to get a negative test."
McIvor ordered Doherty back to court in September for another progress report.
Doherty, clad in a suit and his signature trilby (like a fedora, but with a narrower brim), arrived two hours late for his court appearance, but even two hours early wouldn't have been a moment too soon.
Kate Moss' ex was bundled off to rehab in February after copping to the aforementioned drug possession charges, with the court also ordering him to undergo monthly checkups for the next year. Apparently none of it took, as the former Libertines singer ended up repeatedly testing positive for illegal substances and bottoming out in Sweden, where he was carted off of his flight in a wheelchair with drugs still swimming in his system.
In what promises to be probably either an incredibly interesting or terribly frustrating read (or both), Orion Publishing Group Ltd. announced last month that it will publish Doherty's personal diaries detailing his music career, his brief relationship with Moss and his looong battle with drugs.
"Some of it is quite funny," Orion commissioning editor Ian Preece told the Associated Press in June. "But some of it is very, very dark."