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Monday, January 28, 2008

Heath Ledger: A victim of America's love affair with Prescription drugs?

Heath Ledger died surrounded by six of America’s favourite drugs: Ambien (insomnia), Valium (anxiety), Zoloft (anti-depressant), Xanax (anxiety), Zoplicone (insomnia) and Donormyl (anti-histamine). Some of these are also the favourites for mass shootings that end with suicide.

When people from the USA and Canada write to me for health advice, it turns out more often than not that they are on one or other of these pills as well as others, typically for blood pressure and cholesterol. Strangely, one of the most popular pills of today, Viagra and its variants, has never once been listed by a writer. I wonder why? But I digress...

What is most disturbing about the discussions surrounding Ledger's death is the casual way the role of "legal" prescription drugs is noted and then passed over.

The doctors who prescribed these harmful and addictive drugs to a young and troubled man should be hauled before the courts and held accountable, as should the companies that manufacture them and spend over $50 billion (US) a year pushing them.

1 comment:

Wayne said...

we've all heard the stories, so and so had a horrendous hangover after a party, and you ask, "what were you drinking" so they tell you how they drank all sorts of difference spirits, and you've heard it before, its common knowledge, never mix your drinks, never mix your poisons, your body is busy trying to detoxify itself of one poiison then it has several more to deal with it just can't handle several at once, synthetic drugs have powerful effects on the body which wasnt designed to handle these substances, they manipulate your metabolism in ways that make you feel better but in doing so throw your body out of balance. over a prolonged period of time their effects can be cumulative and disastrous in its actions on the body, chemicals cannot properly correct what an improper lifestyle has caused.
i remember an article by a top nz coach ROger Robinson called "An easy way to a fast ten k" he went on to say there was no such thing. If you wanted to perform well you had to put in the work.
we treat it like a joke, how our parents would say "eat your greens" "take your cod liver oil"
and so on.
on holiday i was having breakfast at a communal table, it was an ala carte breakfast, thre was no single item on our plates that were the same.
i had whole grain and fruit, he had, eggs, bacon, sausages and baked beans from a can ful of sugary salty fatty sauce.
i'd estimate his weight to be about 120 kilos minimum and a lot of it fat. ,
hes's a health disaster waiting to happen.