Meet Pete and Courtney - the Suicide Twins. Can't stop staring at them, can you?

In every rock & roll decade, we get to read plenty about the likes of The Libertines' Pete Doherty and Hole's Courtney Love. In the Seventies, there was Sex Pistol Sid Vicious. He returned to the heroin womb through the eye of a needle - but not before stabbing to death his equally celebrated girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. In the Eighties, there were less-notable candidates: The Replacements' Bob Stinson, The Pretenders' Pete Farndon, Joy Division's Ian Curtis. And, naturally, big stars like Led Zeppelin's John Bonham, too. As for the Nineties, everyone recalls the key facts about Love's husband, Kurt Cobain.

All of them are dead now, of course. All of them possibly became more newsworthy - and wealthy - after their passing: that also is true. And while their music was diverse, the members of this most exclusive of clubs share one more thing in common: prior to their deaths, as we all looked on - unwilling or unable to tear our eyes away - they let us know that they were getting ready to check out. Hell, they practically wanted to die.

Not in the way Pete Townsend did, mind you. The Who guitarist famously wrote, in 'My Generation', that he hoped to die before he got old. Notwithstanding, Townsend kept on getting older like the rest of us and is now closing in on senior citizenship. Plenty of other rock stars proclaim, in one manner or another, that they too prefer to burn out than fade away, but most of them clean up and keep on.

Which brings us, in a circuitous fashion, to Pete and Courtney. They're not dead yet, but they're both working overtime to remedy that little problem.

If you are not British, you can be forgiven for not knowing Pete Doherty. The guitarist has become, hands down, Britain's most famous crack and heroin addict. In the past few months alone, he has been kicked out of his band, The Libertines, for his self-destructive behaviour; jailed for breaking into the flat of his best friend and former band mate, Carl Barat; pleaded guilty to possession of an illegal knife; and made countless failed attempts to clean up. The real crime, however, is not just that an impressive young poet is literally killing himself in public. No, the most egregious wrongdoers are the editorial staff at the New Musical Express who have cynically celebrated Doherty's drug abuse week after week - to the point that it has become the subject of critical commentary in the British mainstream press.

Challenged about placing Doherty (and Courtney Love) on their 2004 Cool List, one of the music weekly's deputy editors actually said this to The Times: "There is something seductive about the idea of doomed destructive youth, which goes back to the Romantic poets." That's a verbatim quote, folks.

Glamourizing crack goes back to the Romantic poets, does it? What a load of unadulterated horses**t. Rock & roll is synonymous with rebellion, true, but drug addiction isn't rebellion, it's sickness. If Pete Doherty dies anytime soon - and chances are he will - the NME will have plenty to answer for.

Stateside, there is no single publication that eggs on Courtney Love, or calls her addiction to the powerful prescription narcotic OxyContin "seductive" or "romantic." Instead, pretty much every major media outlet in North America is in on the act: whenever Courtney gets into trouble - which in recent years has been a lot - assorted media vultures are ringside to cheerfully recount the sordid details, and, simultaneously, make a few bucks.

As such, we know more about Love's drug habits than her music. We know she was charged late last year with felony assault with a deadly weapon. That she is facing trial for two counts of felony drug possession: to wit, cocaine and "opiates." That she cracked open a fan's head with a microphone stand last spring. What most of us don't know, however, is that her last album - a solo effort entitled America's Sweetheart - was one of 2004's best albums. Or that Hole's Live Through This is one of the last decade's most critically acclaimed records. Or that she is truly gifted.

Instead, we're treated to a veritable avalanche of smirking coverage about her slow-motion suicide, and, less frequently, music-industry rags likening Love's junkie status to shamanistic revelation. Like the NME does with Pete Doherty.

Here's the real dope: when you're a junkie, you're sick. When you're a "journalist" romanticizing a junkie's downward spiral, you're even sicker.

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