"Merchants of Misery"

Many had witnessed John Belushi's final, drug-filled days in Hollywood, but no one could steer the actor away from his relentless drive for cocaine and, in the end, heroin. Among friends, reports of the comic's marathon binges made his untimely death seem inevitable: another star caught in the darker currents of celebrity.

But last week, more than four years after Belushi's body was found in a bungalow off Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard, a Los Angeles judge handed a three- year prison sentence to Cathy Evelyn Smith, 39, who supplied the actor with heroin during his final week. Smith had pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter, as well as to administering and furnishing controlled substances. While conceding that Belushi was partly responsible for his own death because of his "drug-infested life," Judge David Horowitz ruled that Smith must be punished for "being the source of that poison."

A former rock-'n'-roll groupie and longtime drug abuser, Smith was reportedly adept at living off the money and drugs of others. Belushi had plenty of both. In his biography of the actor, Bob Woodward wrote that Belushi, as part of his movie contract, received a $2,500-a-week stipend, which he understood to be his drug allowance. Smith is believed to have been the last person to see the comedian alive after a five-day binge that ended with her injecting him with a series of speedballs, powerful mixtures of cocaine and heroin.

Pamela Jacklin, Belushi's sister-in-law, urged a prison term for Smith. "We must let the drug pushers know that the courts will not look kindly upon them. Drug dealers are merchants of misery and death." Smith knows both sides of that coin. According to her attorney, Howard Weitzman, she has been battling her addiction for years. But for Belushi, said Weitzman, Smith might have remained "just another addict."