I don't blame anyone for thinking he was cool back in the day because that was the image painted. He was seen as the sort of king of the indie kids, which
Ended sadly for a lot of people.
I think the boy who wrote in his journal about peaches teaching him to shoot up was mentioned on her thread- he'd be the most public example of how the idolisation of pete Doherty wasn't always harmless. That's not Pete's fault, though. But I've seen him encourage young people to take heroin as well
I always got bad vibes off him and I fell in with a crowd that was big NOPES when it came to opioids (big yeps to most other drugs, I'll admit


) so was warned off him pretty quickly.
He definitely wasn't the first wrong un to be painted as a god, he's not bad because he's an addict, he's bad, or at least was, because of his disregard for other people. I hope he's changed.
That's a very sad case. One of those "someone knows something" stories.