You gotta hand it to Amy Winehouse: She’s a marketing genius.

No other entertainer has parlayed a drug addiction into a career as successfully as she has.

Given that the British singer is in the headlines daily, you might think Winehouse is releasing records at a jaw-dropping pace. Not so.

Her discography seems embarrassingly slender — only two albums to her credit — when you consider how much press coverage she has garnered in the last couple years.

Why do we pay attention to Winehouse?

It’s not because of her music. It’s because of her “antics” — which is code for “drug-induced death spiral.”

Once upon a time, Amy Winehouse was a musician who earned a living by recording songs and offering them to the public.

Back then, it seemed cute the promising vocalist sang Rehab, a tune about her refusal to get counseling for substance abuse. This phase was short-lived; Rehab ceased being ironic months ago and hearing it now triggers a wave of sadness.

The new Winehouse offers a different product. It’s a kind of reality show, a daily circus in which she is the star.

What we are watching is a functioning drug addict and the deeper she sinks into her addiction, the more stories are generated in the tabloid press.

This isn’t a bad thing for her career. Her frequent appearances on TV, on front pages and home pages, guarantee Winehouse’s back catalogue (consisting of 2006’s Back to Black and 2003’s Frank) will continue to be hot and her value as a live act will remain high.

She could, of course, do the kind of things musical acts are supposed to do, like make more records.

The risk with this strategy is the public might reject her new material. On the other hand, we have an insatiable appetite for stories about Amy’s latest run-in with the law, so why should she bother trying to create anything new?

This wasn’t always the way. There was a time when stars guarded their problems with drugs and alcohol.

When funnyman John Belushi overdosed in 1982, for instance, the subsequent revelations of his coke habit came as a shock to the millions of fans who had gone to his movies, bought his albums and adored him on TV.

Belushi’s addiction was a sideshow for private consumption and right up until his death, the larger-than-life comedian was actually trying to be productive — he died writing the film Noble Rot.

But why should Amy change her ways? She is at the centre of a global spotlight and she doesn’t have to do anything more than stumble from one day to the next.

In the months before the release of the 2005 War of the Worlds remake, Tom Cruise proved the value of going crazy as a means of attracting the attention of journalists. All Amy is doing is taking this press strategy of calculated insanity one step further.

It’s true the risk she runs with her addiction is that the drugs may end her life prematurely.

But if you were making millions, winning Grammys and appearing on the front of magazines, it might be hard for you to go clean and sober too.