Oxycodone + Vicodin + Valium + Temazepam + Xanax + Doxylamine cocktail cause of Ledger's death

[Amerigo Vespucci]

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20176284,00.html

Heath Ledger's death on Jan. 22 was due to an accidental mixture of prescription drugs, New York City's Chief Medical Examiner has concluded.

"Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Diazepam, Temazepam, Alprazolam, and Doxylamine," said an announcement released Wednesday morning by office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove.

"We have concluded that the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescription medications," the two-paragraph statement said in its entirety.

Oxycodone is a painkiller, Hydrocodone is also known as Vicodin, Diazepam is commonly called Valium, Temazepam treats anxiety or sleeplessness, Alprazolam is known as Xanax, and Doxylamine is a sedating antihistamine often used as a sleep aid.

[Ellen Forradalom]

1. Holy moly! I'm OD'ing just reading that list!

What a loss that he did not get help before it was too late.

[leftofthedial]

2. where do these people get these doctors?

the insurance company will barely let my doctor prescribe an antibiotic.

fer fucksake.

[mitchum]

13. "The rich are different than you and I"

same as it ever was

[Iggo]

3. Damn! I gotta call my sponsor!

[krispos42]

4. And yet, Rush is still alive!!!!

Must be something to sheer mass... :angry:

[Deja Q]

5. One hell of an accident. One hell of a mixture.

How many mg of each did he take? Most prescription drugs come in sufficiently small quantities.

[Giant Robot]

6. I don't mean to sound insensitive here

I know that's a bad way to start a post, but how does one not know that a med cocktail consisting of all those things is bad for you? I mean I got nervous with the amount of ibuprofen I was prescribed once. He was on a mixture of meds that decrease respiratory function, and if he did not know what this would do, how come no doctor spotted this. heath, medical staff, any of Heath's entourage, someone must have known that this collection was just bad for a human being, possibly fatal. In my mind this is almost absurd. Tragic.

[SteppingRazor]

7. Depends on your definition of "bad."

If what you care about is getting stoned as bejesus, then that mixture's good for you, and that's probably all he was thinking about. Nobody ever thinks they're going to be the one who ODs.

[Giant Robot]

9. True enough my friend

I still wonder about him looking to get high, if that was it, I mean. I don't understand it I guess, taking a collection of all those pills to get a high on. Going to a doctor to get all those pills? Wouldn't it just be easier to take extra of one than have to take a lot of all of them?

[SteppingRazor]

11. Well, couple points:

1) You don't necessarily need to go to a doctor to get pharmies. Plenty of dealers sell them.
2) It might be easier to just take a bunch of one pill, but it's not the same kind of high. Taking a handful of vicodin is not the same as taking some vicodin and some valium.

[Giant Robot]

14. I would suspect they were prescribed

I of course have nothing to back this up, but I believe we would have heard about unprescribed pills being found on the scene. Hell we heard about a rolled up $20 for goodness sakes so I would think that kind of information would come out.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. Accidental overdoses are easy when you're suffering.

I once had an excrutiating toothache for several. I ended up taking way too many pain killers, I knew I was taking way too many pain killers, but I just wanted the pain to stop. That's all I cared about.

[MsKandice01]

15. Same thing happened to me once...

I had a toothache for about 4 days (eventually went to the dentist and had it pulled...no dental ins.) and came dangerously close to OD'ing on pain meds. I was popping Vicodin, Tylenol, Advil and Aleve like candy and nothing was touching the pain. I knew what I was doing was bad but I was literally losing my mind from the pain I was in and I just wanted it to stop. I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't think, and simply couldn't function.

One day, it was so bad that I somehow made it to work but my co-worker spent half the morning trying to convince me to let her call 9-1-1 because I literally fell out of my chair once and spent the rest of the morning nodding off every minute because I had so much Vicodin in my system.

[Omphaloskepsis]

10. I wouldn't assume the same doctor wrote all of those prescriptions.

Hell, I would bet some of them were filled in different countries.

[SteppingRazor]

12. I wouldn't assume a doctor even wrote prescriptions for the meds.

Drug dealers don't just deal in weed and blow these days.