What is the Len Bias case?

The Len Bias case was a convergence of sport celebrity and
popular culture finding one common link:  The dangerous problem of drug usage.  As
previously noted, Bias was a great basketball athlete from Maryland.  He dominated the
Atlantic Coast Conference with his play at a time when one Michael Jordan was also in
the conference.  Bias was selected to go to the Boston Celtics as their first round
pick.  He was seen as the heir apparent to dynasty started by Kevin McHale and Larry
Bird.  Red Auerbach, then General Manager of the Celtics, believed in Bias and the sky
was the limit to Bias' reach.  One night changed all of this when Bias and his friends
were partying with cocaine.  Bias had very little, but it was enough to cause him to go
into cardiac arrest.  Bias' death through the recreational use of cocaine woke up a
slumbering nation that believed that drug use was something contained in only the
darkest and most dank corners of American cities.  Len Bias was a clean cut, marketing
executive's dream with talent to match.  If he fell to drug use, if he proved to be
mortal, anyone could. In response to the Bias case or in convergence with it, there was
more public outcry and legislation that made drug use and possession of drugs result in
a greater legal penalty.  The Bias case pointed to drug use amongst athletes, both
college and professionals.  In the end, the case of Len Bias ends up becoming one of a
many in a sad procession of what could have been and what might have been to be taken
away by poor decision making.