close-up of kidney

According to several sources, the former cocaine and heroin addict was a frequent patient at L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai hospital last summer as he battled kidney disease.

“Anthony’s health was pretty bleak,” a close friend tells us of the rocker, whose partying ways of the past contributed to his condition.

“Organ failure was a possibility. There was talk of how to get him on a transplant list, to cover all the bases, but that opened up a whole new can of worms because people with histories of drug and alcohol abuse are less likely to receive the organs they need.”

No doubt decades of drug and alcohol abuse can cost you a couple kidneys. But why should that be any reason for the state to deny people replacement organs?

It's illegal to sell human organs for profit in the U.S., which means that all patients, regardless of means, are relegated to organ donor lists while they wait in line for others to die -- usually young people killed in untimely accidents -- so they can have a chance to live. In fact, if you attempted to sell or purchase an organ for transplant, you'd be accused of "trafficking" in human organs and likely receive a visit from a SWAT team.

According to Virginia Postrel, as of January 2007 there were almost 100,000 people on transplant lists, over two-thirds of whom were in need of kidneys. Postrel notes, "[N]obody has to die to supply a kidney. They can come from living donors, who can live perfectly normal lives with a single kidney and who now account for nearly 40 percent of all kidney transplants."

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the lead singer of one of the most popular rock backs of all time could probably afford a couple kidneys if he was willing to pay for them. But the point is moot so far as the state is concerned.

If reports are true and Anthony Kiedis is in need of a kidney transplant, he will not only be forced to take his place naturally in line behind the last guy who signed up, but he'll also be discriminated against due to drug and alcohol use. Indeed, it's likely the government would even allow others behind him to take his place as long as they've lived "cleaner" lifestyles.

This is absurd. In a free country, purchasing human organs would be no more illegal than buying replacement blue jeans, bourbon, or automobiles.

Faced with no options other than organ donation, most people probably wouldn't find it very cost effective to give up a kidney to a perfect stranger. But what if they could be paid $100,000 for their trouble? Or a million?

It's practically impossible at this point to say how a private organ market would operate, but this much is certain: Life and death shouldn't have to come down to dumb luck, and our fate most certainly should not be ultimately dictated by the state.