One of the world's foremost psychiatrists has trained his expert eye on the copyright-plagued tape, first described in detail by Radar, of a nine months pregnant and seemingly high Anna Nicole Smith.

Dr. Robert Cancro, chairman emeritus of New York University's psychiatric department, confirms that Smith "looks very much like she's under the influence of drugs" in the first and second of several clips in the video shot over two days at her Bahamian residence just days before she entered the hospital and gave birth to Dannielynn. "She has breast engorgement and the belly in some of the clips," Cancro says. "It could be methadone that she was taking, or it could be heroin, but it looks like an opiate reaction. Obviously one could be mistaken, but it looks the way a person presents who is taking opiates. Her mood was very unstable. She was at times tearful and indicated she was very frightened and afraid of the pain."

Among the doctor's previous consults is a famous sit-down with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes to talk about mental health and Wallace's own suicide attempt. Cancro is also a consulting doctor for the New York Yankees, several intelligence organizations, and the World Health Organization (WHO). What he could positively diagnose is that Anna Nicole was "labile: all over the place with her mood very up and down" right before her daughter's birth and well before her own death. "It would seem she was going through a difficult time."

The video, originally shot for Smith's website, wound up in the hands of a Brooklyn auto body shop owner. With his Bensonhurst attorney, he shopped it around unsuccessfully to various TV shows and tabloids. All were skittish about the way the tape found its way from a FedEx truck to its outer-borough recipients and passed on airing it.

Radar recently viewed the tape upon which Smith describes the ordeal of giving birth to her son Daniel as so difficult that she "wanted to die." Daniel would die at age 20, just a week after the video was made, from a combination of drugs including methadone.

MSNBC is slated to air a report on the tape in the next few days. To skirt copyright issues, they will not broadcast images or sound from the tape.

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Photo: Patrick McMullan