David B. - 24 January 2008 11:41 AM

Me too, as the Aussie cops are likely to be a lot less understanding of either their ‘holy mission’.

WBC Member- “GOD HATES FAGS”

Mourner 1- “What the f***?”

Mourner 2- “Streuth! Bruce, get the sticks, mate.”

Mourner 3- “We’ll show you what sodomy is, mate. GET HIM!”

WBC Member- “Uh…”

*Many large Australian men advance on the group to violate them and divide their parts between the barbie, the sharks and the dingoes*

Accipiter - 26 January 2008 03:51 AM

Maegan - 25 January 2008 05:32 PM

I plead the 5th.

That figures. 

[drunk voice]Shhh…I’ve got to tell you a secret![/drunk voice]

Heath Ledger died of a tragic accidental overdose of prescription drugs, a coroner has confirmed today.

The 28-year-old actor died of ‘acute intoxication’ caused by a lethal cocktail including ‘painkillers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication.’

‘There was acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine,’ said a medical examiner spokeswoman. ‘What you’re looking at here is the cumulative effects of these medications together,’ she said.

The drugs are the generic names for the OxyContin painkiller, the anti-anxiety drug Valium, Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, and the sleep aids Restoril and Unisom. Hydrocodone is another name for ibuprofen.

More here.

I’m happy to hear it wasn’t suicide, whilst still being sad he died. If that makes sense.

Hydrocodone is another name for ibuprofen.

This is wrong…
Hydrocodone is a narcotic analgesic.

Boo - 06 February 2008 05:22 PM

I’m happy to hear it wasn’t suicide, whilst still being sad he died. If that makes sense.

I know what you mean - I feel the same way, in that I’m sad that he died, but relieved that he wasn’t feeling so bad that he felt he had to overdose.
Ok, does that make sense?

Yes it does. That’s pretty much what I meant.

Valium and sleeping pills. . .not a good mix.  I wonder if anybody ever bothered to tell him about what pills not to take at the same time?

All the info you need about meds should be in the pharmacy insert you get with your meds.  We don’t always look at them. It looks like he got this stuff at several different pharmacies.  If he got them at one or even 2 it may have been noticed and the pharmicist could have tried to stop him from getting so many different and synchronizing meds.  The narcotics and the xanax and the sleeping pills and the valium would have all acted together to put him into respitory depression.  He probably had taken some of this over a long period of time and had gotten used to the effects and had to take more to get the same effect.  So sad

Smerk - 24 January 2008 10:23 AM

Accipiter - 23 January 2008 08:26 PM

LaMa - 23 January 2008 08:18 PM

Smerk - 23 January 2008 10:25 AM

Latest news is that it was probably an overdose on sleeping pills - hopefully it was accidental.

There is no such thing as an “accidental” overdose on sleeping pills really. You need a massive overdose (think: 50 to 100) to kill yourselve.

That would depend on a lot of things, actually.

They could be extra super-strong pills, and he accidentally took as many as he would if they were regular ones.  That’s doubtful, but a possibility.

He could have taken a whole handful of them, thinking that he really needed to get to sleep but would have a hard time doing it.

He could have had a lot of alcohol first, and then taken the pills.  The alcohol would boost the potency of the pills, especially if he was really drunk and forgot how many pills he’d already taken.

Yup, he was on Stilnox.  Apparently known as Ambien in the US.  Has some side-effects (including sleep-walking) that’s caused the Australian Adverse Drug Reactions Advisory Committee to put the stuff under review.

The only really dangerous sleeping medication are the old fashioned barbiturates, which are no longer prescribed. Modern sleeping medication like Stilnox or Temazepam really is not able to kill you unless you take really, really massive quantities (or mix it with other, more dangerous medication like Ledger apparently did). And I really mean “massive” here, not a handful but 100 or more. The only effect of taking a large number of such sleeping medication is that you go into a really long sleep/coma for several days and then wake up again. Not that that is healthy to do, as you risk the possibility of brain damage of some sort too. Believe me: many would-be-suicidals have gone through this disillusion.

So, when things like this happen with sleeping medication, they are really not “accidents”. In fact, seeing the list of stuff that Ledger apparently took in combination and caused his death, I doubt whether that was an accident (or otherwise he had a seriously incompetent doctor). But then, I am not a doctor or coroner of course.

He might also have had multiple doctors.  And people frequently forgot to mention what meds they are on.  Or don’t remember the names & go…Hmm, I think it’s ‘this one’.  Well, ‘this one’ is okay with ‘that one’...and the doc prescribes it…not realizing ‘this one’ was really ‘the other one’ and is a lethal combo.

I did hear somewhere that all those prescriptions were from different doctors.