Friend: Winehouse may have brain damage

LONDON, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- British soul singer Amy Winehouse may have brain damage after a 36-hour drug binge, an unidentified friend told The Sun newspaper.

The unidentified source alleged Winehouse has had two major drug overdoses in the past year or so -- one last August and another this past summer.

During the binges, the Grammy Award-winning recording artist experienced convulsions similar to those seen in the horror flick "The Exorcist," the source maintained, adding that Winehouse has been informed by doctors she might not survive another overdose.

"The future is bleak, bleak, bleak. (Her father) Mitch does everything he can to protect his daughter -- but his 'explanation' for Amy's hospital dash in July was just simply untrue," the friend told The Sun. "She had smoked an inhuman amount of hash, which resulted in acute cannabis poisoning. You have to take a (expletive) load of pot to suffer that severe a reaction. It's thought she had been smoking it for 36 hours. Amy's fits were as bad as the convulsions she had during her overdose in August last year.

"No one has mentioned her meth use before -- but that stuff is truly nasty. She is in need of years of psychiatry and medical treatment if she has a hope."