Some Sleeping Pill Users Range Far Beyond Bed (Powell)

[donsu]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/business/08ambien.html?ex=1146974400&en=cc6328ea6d2bbd20&ei=5070


With a tendency to stare zombie-like and run into stationary objects, a new species of impaired motorist is hitting the roads: the Ambien driver.

-snip-

In some state toxicology laboratories Ambien makes the top 10 list of drugs found in impaired drivers. Wisconsin officials identified Ambien in the bloodstreams of 187 arrested drivers from 1999 to 2004.

And as a more people are taking the drug — 26.5 million prescriptions in this country last year — there are signs that Ambien-related driving arrests are on the rise. In Washington State, for example, officials counted 78 impaired-driving arrests in which Ambien was a factor last year, up from 56 in 2004.

-snip-

Doctors affiliated with the University of Minnesota Medical Center who have studied Ambien recently reported the cases of two users who told doctors they sleep-drove to the supermarket while under the drug's influence. Neither of the patients remembered the episode the next day, according to Dr. Carlos Schenck, an expert in sleep disorders who is the lead researcher in the study.
-snip-
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didn't Colin Powell tell the nation how wonderful Ambien was and that they all lived by it? I remember that, and how surprised I was that he said it out loud like that.

[Rose Siding]

1. He did say that. Here's a link-

Powell needs medication to sleep nights
by Al Kamen, Washington Post

Nov. 10, 2003

Secretary of State Colin Powell described his killer schedule in an interview Thursday with Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, a reporter for a London-based Saudi newspaper .

"So do you use sleeping tablets to organize yourself?" Al-Rashed asked.

"Yes. Well, I wouldn't call them that," Powell said. "They're a wonderful medication — not medication. How would you call it? They're called Ambien, which is very good. You don't use Ambien? Everybody here uses Ambien."

Really? Some folks across the river may conclude that explains a lot.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=885163&mesg_id=886978

[TomInTib]

2. Ya gotta love that FDA fast-track, eh?

I wonder where the liability lies.

[Vidar]

3. SOMA under a new name. Huxley laughs from the other side.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. 5-Hydroxytryptophan, melatonin, exercise, proper bedtime

regimen and perhaps confession would eliminate the symptom called insomnia that Mr. Powell is living with.

[klebean]

5. sleep binge eating

I recall an article I read a short while ago that a small percentage of Ambien
users were found to be binge eating in their sleep - this article also mentions
sleep eating. The article also cites a woman who did something similar to Kennedy
(and worse - peed in the middle of an intersection). When she took her pill and went
to bed, there was an unopened bottle of wine on her kitchen counter. When she came
back home after being processed, she found the bottle open and half consumed. Weird.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

6. Ambien Is Wonderful. The Alarmist Overdramatizations And Fear Mongering

of the medication is really reaching levels beyond irrational now.

Firstly, how much information do you have on the arrests that allegedly were related to Ambien? Do you have the details at all as to what the infractions were and how linked Ambien had been? It only says Ambien was a factor, but fails to say if it was the only factor. Were there other factors? Was the medication taken as directed? Was alcohol involved as well?

Do you not see the part that says 26.5 MILLION FUCKING PRESCRIPTIONS of it were filled last year? Hey, how many cases were reported by the university? 2? Fucking 2? Seriously? 2? The incidents country wide of severe side affects are in the small hundreds only, and most are more than likely due to the abuse of the medication rather than the medication itself (i.e. taking too high a dosage, combining with alcohol, taking it when not in an environment to go to sleep etc.). But regardless, it is still a MINISCULE number of incidents, in comparison to 26.5 million fucking presecriptions.

Ambien is one of the safest and effective medications out there today. No amount of zealous alarmism is going to change that simple fact.

[donsu]

7. and they paid you how much?

nt