Bush Cancels Event After Ledger's Death

Bush Cancels Event After Ledger's Death

Wednesday, January 23, 2008


(01-23) 09:04 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --


The death of Heath Ledger prompted the White House to postpone President Bush's event Wednesday promoting an ad campaign aimed at preventing prescription drug abuse.

snip...
The president was to make a statement in the Roosevelt Room on the Office of National Drug Control Policy's television advertisement about preventing prescription drug abuse. A federally financed study released in December at the White House showed illicit drug use by teens continued to gradually decline overall this year, but the use of prescription painkillers remained popular among young people.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Bush's event had been scheduled for a while.

"We thought it would be better to postpone the event rather than run the risk of anyone thinking that we were being opportunistic in highlighting the issue," she said.

more...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/01/23/national/w074422S09.DTL&tsp=1

:eyes: Whatever could Dana Perino be talking about?

I smell bush*t.

Typical Bush: free time is more important than work.

Rumors of over-the-counter, prescription and perhaps even illegal drugs are all coming out of the investigators right now. Their saying it may be another week or longer before they can ascertain where to even start looking once the toxicology reports come back.

Big Pharma

of black tar into his arm? I'm just not sure where you're coming from with this comment.

canceling his speech on drugs. Would Bush have canceled the speech if he was using 'illegal drugs'?
I am saddened by his death - he is so young and he left a very young child.

Reword.

I have more friends whose lives have been devastated by their addiction to Vicodin than I have EVER had to the friends who smoke pot. I would surmise to say that it equals the Meth scourge.
How do you fix it?
Simple. Make Vicodin a Schedule II drug and stop it in its tracks. It needs to be regulated a lot more closely than it is.
When I work in the ER, I would say about 60% of the patients are frequent fliers in there to get their Vicodin fix. It is easier for the Docs to give it to them than it is to say no. Making it a triplicate would halt that horseshit in short order.
It doesn't make me feel bad to make people have to show ID to get it, I have to show ID to get my Sudafed.

I don't think you can really put them together as drugs of abuse simply because Methamphetamine has been shown to change the structure in the brain leading to a hardwired addiction whereas Vicodin and other Opiates, though not easy to quit, are much easier to get over than Meth. I've seen brain scans of meth addicts, 6 months after quitting that still light up almost as much when thinking about a high as the day they quit. 6 months out with Oxycodone addicts showed a normal scan.

Meth has also been shown to screw up areas of the brain linked to depression, making it worse and anxiety and sadness as well.

Methamphetamine brain changes can also be seen after just one hit, although repeated abuse makes it a whole lot worse. I pity anybody that gets caught up with Meth.

on edit: I don't have any problem in triplicating Vicodin and I'd like to see it a little more representative of all the strong opiates. I'm not sure where oxycodone is on the schedule but there is a ton of abuse with it too.

Yes it can. I wasn't talking about the physical damage...but the psycho-social damage that is caused to the people who are addicted to Vicodin in pretty severe. Their entire lives are centered around the drug, obtaining the drug, taking the drug....rinse and repeat.
Not to mention what the abuse of it does to the liver.
Meth is in a class by itself...and has its own assorted evils as you mentioned.
But Vicodin ruins lives. Just ask anyone who has ever been addicted to it. There needs to be tighter controls on it.

It is much harder to obtain--and good luck getting an ER doc to write it. It most likely isn't going to happen.

Vicodin makes me nauseous. Just the thought of it right now evokes a queasy feeling. Ick.

Honest to God.

But it does make me feel sad. I've seen too many peoples lives spiral out of their control due to addiction not to find it sad.