Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: trax1 on August 07, 2009, 04:15:29 PM
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Looks like Billy Mays was using cocaine in the days leading up to his heart attack and the medical examiner said that the cocaine use contributed to his heart disease that resulted in his heart attack.
http://www.comcast.net/articles/entertainment/20090807/US.Billy.Mays/ (http://www.comcast.net/articles/entertainment/20090807/US.Billy.Mays/)
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Now that explains the yelling in those Commercials.
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Oh my, poor Billy. Cocaine is a helluva drug. Drugs are bad, stay in school kids!
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It's ok Stodd, I'll do the crying for both of us. :cry :cry
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:cry
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This guy reportedly tried to steal and snort Billy's ashes...
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp193/dmbear/keithrichards1.jpg)
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Poor guy, Stodd will be crushed.....
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I never knew Billy Mays liked to party...
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Someone should get Stodd lined up with a support group when he hears this .
Nutte :salute
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This was a big shocker :rofl Cocaine Fiend
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I guess now we all know where he got all that energy from.
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Billy "Blow" Mays :)
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That's sad, wonder how his kids and wife feel.
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I called this the day I heard he tied. Just needed the ME to justify me. No pun intended.
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You mean that wasn't an emergency supply of OxyClean he always carried?
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A bit of cocaine may contribute slightly, I wonder if the good money and readily available steak dinners and expensive wine had anything to do with it.. :rolleyes:
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That's sad, wonder how his kids and wife feel.
Well... Judging by the News Stories, they feel that the "blow" had little or nothing to do with Billy's death... Or at least they feel that the "blow" shouldn't affect the insurance pay out... Very sad, in more ways then one...
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yep. just like i thought. the second i saw it on google i came here...knowing full well that you dweebs would be having a field day on this one.
:cool:
it's better to burn out than fade awayyyyyyyy!!!!
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:cry
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Well looks like Billy Mays was into a few more drugs then just cocaine, here's a list of all the drugs found in his system, "hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (painkiller), alprazolam (Xanax), nordiazepam (Valium), benzoylecgonine (byproduct of cocaine) and temazepam (anti-anxiety). Ethanol -- alcohol", I can't believe that he was that big of a drug user, it's crazy.
Apparently a side effect of being on that many drugs is it gets you really excited about getting grape juice stains out of your shirts.
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A bit of cocaine may contribute slightly
My step-sister works the cardiac floor of a hospital in Charlotte. The majority of their patients are cocaine users, past or present.
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This guy reportedly tried to steal and snort Billy's ashes...
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp193/dmbear/keithrichards1.jpg)
Monitor cleanup needed on Aisle 5 :rofl
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Well looks like Billy Mays was into a few more drugs then just cocaine, here's a list of all the drugs found in his system, "hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (painkiller), alprazolam (Xanax), nordiazepam (Valium), benzoylecgonine (byproduct of cocaine) and temazepam (anti-anxiety). Ethanol -- alcohol", I can't believe that he was that big of a drug user, it's crazy.
Apparently a side effect of being on that many drugs is it gets you really excited about getting grape juice stains out of your shirts.
Alot of those drugs are in ALOT of ppls systems me thinks. Alot more than you may realize.
I used to take the Hydrocodon for bad knee pain but that messed with my insides to much, anybody who has taken it for awhile will know what I speak of.
Alot of ppl take anti-anxiety or anti-depressants, so its not really that big of a news story as some might believe
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Alot of those drugs are in ALOT of ppls systems me thinks. Alot more than you may realize.
I used to take the Hydrocodon for bad knee pain but that messed with my insides to much, anybody who has taken it for awhile will know what I speak of.
Alot of ppl take anti-anxiety or anti-depressants, so its not really that big of a news story as some might believe
Theres no reason why he should have been on some of those drugs, like Vicodin & Oxycodone, there both the same thing, a pain killer, I've been on Oxycodone(Oxycontin) for years now and no doctor would prescribe them both together, Oxycodone is more then enough for any pain you might have, it's one of the strongest pain killers available. Then you have the Valium & Xanax(benzodiazepines), again both basically the same thing, now if he was just taking one of each of these drugs then I'd say it's normal, but add the cocaine on top of all that and you have a guy who likes to get high. To me it sounds like he was doctor shopping.
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http://www.btls.com/audio/mansons-new-billy-mays-song.html
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My step-sister works the cardiac floor of a hospital in Charlotte. The majority of their patients are cocaine users, past or present.
majority of people are porbably cocaine users, past or present. They are also probably red meat and alcohol users.
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Some people are practically immune to the beneficial effects of the codein derivative drugs. After my back surgery and a recent jaw surgery, they prescribed vicodin, percocet, etc. None of it worked. The only effects those drugs have on me (in full prescription strength, ie. the most you can take without overdosing on the tylenol) is that I get really itchy (as in paranoid schitzo itchy) and my memory gets really bad. But I get zero pain relief from them.
The problem is that if someone like me keeps increasing the dosage trying to get pain relief, they end up hooked on the stuff and end up taking other drugs to compensate for the negative effects.
I'm lucky... I didn't get hooked because I couldn't stand the itching. I just kept asking the doc for something different each week, and never did find something that worked before the pain went away by itself. With a little help from vitamin "M", Motrin...
Still, drug abuse is pretty much like aids for celebrities. They spread it around amongst themselves via casual social contact and although it rarely kills them quickly, it leads to a lifetime of drug dependency and an early death because you can't cure stupid. My younger brother was pretty f**ed up in the head (mental illness) before he died, and even he kept away from illegal drugs.
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majority of people are porbably cocaine users, past or present.
BS.
Maybe the crowd you hang with is into that sort of thing, but that's a social/cultural grouping that is not universal and I don't think it's even close to the majority, even if you count people who tried it only once as a "past user".
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majority of people are probably cocaine users, past or present.
I think a majority is more likely marijuana users than cocaine, but i don't think that's bad for your heart.
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I know what you mean about the itching Eagl, after a car accident I was in I had a morphine pump when I was in ICU, I was strapped down to the bed because I had spinal damage and the bed slowly rotated side to side, so I was always calling the nurses in to itch me.
I'm still on pain meds, I take oxycontin and it helps my pain, and at first I was itching like hell all the time, I mean to the point where I was scratching off skin, it was alawys under my finger nails when I would stop, but luckily it went away for the most part, I still itch a little, but not all that much.
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BS.
Maybe the crowd you hang with is into that sort of thing, but that's a social/cultural grouping that is not universal and I don't think it's even close to the majority, even if you count people who tried it only once as a "past user".
OK, it was a stupid statement to make blind like that without evidence. First off i would like to say that i have tried coke some good stuff, some terrible, and never really seen the point of the drug. I am not defending its use, and would urge anyone who regularly snorts coke to cease the activity. If you want to be loud and arrogant you dont need a drug as an excuse, just be it.
In the UK, I would suspect that of the current generation, age group 15-30, 'most' people have either accidentaly come into contact with (search for stats on the amount of bank notes that test possitive for cocaine in any given region, its interesting and worrying), tried one line, or abused cocaine. The official figures say 1 in 20 aged 16-59 is a USER of cocaine. Not tried it once, a 'user'.
By Michael Day
Health Correspondent
The Telegraph - UK
10-4-3
"...the Home Office [is preparing] to publish research suggesting that the number of cocaine users in Britain has been radically underestimated. Current figures show that the number of users has risen fivefold in the past 10 years, from one in 100 to one in 20 of the 16 to 59 age group."
Thousands of cocaine-abusers are putting hospital casualty wards under strain by turning up with serious chest pains caused by taking the drug, according to a study by one of Britain's leading authorities on drug abuse.
Hospital staff have to drop other cases to deal with the drug-takers - all young men under 30 - as potential medical emergencies because the symptoms are so serious.
The research, by John Henry, a professor of medicine at Imperial College London School of Medicine, found that one in three such visits to accident and emergency departments in inner-city hospitals may be due to cocaine abuse.
Prof Henry conducted anonymous urine tests on 450 men who came to his A&E department with chest pains over several months and found that a third tested positive for cocaine.
The study, which has been submitted for publication, provides worrying evidence that the surge in cocaine use will result in a tide of heart disease in young people.
Prof Henry, a former director of the National Poisons Unit who is based at St Mary's Hospital, London, said: "This is a lower rate than some American studies have found, but higher than we expected, and very worrying."
He said that the number of deaths from cocaine had been seriously underestimated. Government figures show that the number of cocaine-related deaths reported by coroners' offices rose by 42 per cent last year, to 95.
Prof Henry believes that the official figures are "the tip of the iceberg" because many go unrecorded as cocaine-related deaths. "They don't include all the trauma; people shooting other people or when someone gets a knife in the chest," he said.
Casualty departments in other inner-city hospitals are experiencing a similar rise in numbers of men complaining of chest pains that are probably cocaine-related.
Mr Manolis Gavalas, an A&E consultant at University College Hospital, said: "We frequently get people coming in with cocaine-induced chest pains. The drug is constricting the coronary circulation, so of course it's dangerous - and it can lead to heart attacks.
"Ten years ago it was unheard of, but now we see lots of young male patients in their 20s or 30s with this, especially on Friday and Saturday night," he said.
"If you see one of these young patients with these symptoms you know it's cocaine, but it's still very serious and you have to take it very seriously." That means the patients are given priority treatment, have medical histories taken and often have electrocardiogram readings.
Dr Carole Gavin, a consultant at the Hope Hospital in Salford, Manchester, said: "We do seem to see more young men with these symptoms.
"There have been a couple in the last six months who've had serious chest pains and who've admitted using cocaine. But of course there may be many who don't admit they've been using it."
Cocaine induces a feeling of well-being by raising dopamine levels in the brain, but also increases blood pressure and causes blood vessels to contract. Sometimes the arteries feeding the heart go into spasm, causing the severe chest pains which make users go to hospital.
If the spasms are particularly severe the patients may need drugs such as nitrates to force their vessels open and prevent a heart attack.
Four years ago the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the risk of death from a heart attack rose 24-fold in the first hour after cocaine use.
"There's also the risk of cerebral haemorrhage and stroke," Dr Gavin added. "We've seen one 40-year-old in the last year who had a stroke on cocaine."
Some researchers even fear that cocaine, along with ecstasy, could spark the early onset of Parkinson's disease, by causing the body to exhaust its supply of dopamine prematurely.
Prof Henry was so concerned about the more immediate ill-effects of cocaine that he persuaded his medical ethics committee to allow him to test urine samples from young men appearing in his hospital with chest pain in such a way that they were anonymous and could not be traced. He hopes to do follow-up research on the cost implications for the NHS.
The study comes as the Home Office prepares to publish research suggesting that the number of cocaine users in Britain has been radically underestimated. Current figures show that the number of users has risen fivefold in the past 10 years, from one in 100 to one in 20 of the 16 to 59 age group.
Research it commissioned from National Economic Research Associates warns, however, that many users go unnoticed. Edward Bramley-Harker, who led the research, said: "The current estimate came from looking at people arrested for cocaine abuse. But there are many affluent users who are not likely to be arrested, so the figure of 475,000 users is a considerable underestimate."
Neither do these figures include the growing, 200,000-strong group of crack cocaine users who are at risk from the same physical side effects as users of ordinary cocaine.
So you're right, I was talking out of my backside i admit, but a little research shows just how large the cocaine problem is in britain right now. Also figure that any official reports are at least six months behind the times by the time anyone has worked them out and published.
However, when it comes to death induced through the abuse of cocaine, one is just as more likely to be seriously damaged by abusing a big spoon of salt three times a day than three lines of charlie a day. Unless of course we consider financial damage...
The amount of salt - sodium chloride - that we eat has a direct effect on our health and blood pressure. The more salt we eat the higher our blood pressure. This is true, not only in people with high blood pressure, but also in people with normal blood pressure. A high sodium salt intake also causes other health damage, such as greater retention of water in your body, which leads to swelling of the ankles and weight gain. Too much salt also worsens thinning of the bones (osteoporosis), asthma and kidney disease and is closely related to cancer of the stomach. Therefore, everyone should cut the amount of salt they eat to improve their health.
The Food Standards Agency issued salt intake targets for adults and children. The target for adults is to cut their salt intake from the current amount of 10-12 grams per day (two teaspoonfuls) to 5-6 grams a day (1 teaspoonful) or less. Salt intakes for children depend upon their age, but are considerably less than for adults. If you can reduce your salt intake more this will lower your blood pressure further.
The problem is of course, the 'abuse' part.
My point with good old Billy, RIP, is that the fact he was a cocaine user is being considered his downfall, a very usefull missrepresentation to further help the crusade against illegal narcotics. His death may have been contributed just as equally to salt intake.
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Mechanic,
You touched on the real problem, maybe without realizing it. The issue is that a drug abuser is likely to be engaged in a host of risky activities and rarely abuses only one substance. They found a whole medicine chest in that guy, same as with all the other celebrities that recently died either due to drug overdoses, or by other causes that were probably aggravated by drug abuse.
I would argue that a great number of those who died of "natural causes" (like Mays) might not have died if their lifestyle had not included routine substance abuse. Not only that, I will extrapolate further to assert that they would have had a higher quality of life when they were alive had they not been substance abusers. There are people who have medical conditions that are horrid enough that substance abuse may lead to a better quality of life even if it means an earlier death, but that group of people is very small compared to the people who abuse drugs. The thing is, almost ALL of them justify their substance abuse to themselves and others by pointing to medical conditions they do not have, or by normalizing the behavior by saying that everyone else does it and that it's not really all that harmful.
Denial is a near-100% indicator of a real no-kidding substance abuse problem. I've seen it first-hand with multiple family members and friends, and it's not pretty. Even getting past the denial is not a guaranteed way to kick addictions, although it is a required first step.
Mays was likely just like every other substance abuser and addict, in full denial that what he was doing was harmful and convinced that his drug abuse was either beneficial or required for his welfare. It's nonsense, but it's a consistent delusion among nearly 100% of substance abusers (including many users in this forum). Very few people really *need* to routinely take over the long term the drugs that are most commonly abused. Yes some people need them, but most do not and they practically define addiction and denial as a population.
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Very well said, all of it. My family was split apart by alcoholism (or possibly it only existed so long because of it) so i have seen some of it first hand also. The original BS comment i threw in was purely related to cocaine.
What you say about denial is very true. I think it is more a social front than a true feeling within the addict. Addiction is usualy very clear to the addicted by the time it has become a life changing problem. Addiction itself is putting off the problem till the next day every time. Recovery of course the opposite, staying off the substance just for today.
Anyhow, cocaine did not kill Bill. It may have contributed slightly along with many other huge factors not least of all salt intake. As to his quality of life due to substance abuse, or the whole subject in general i could not word it better than you.
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Theres no reason why he should have been on some of those drugs, like Vicodin & Oxycodone, there both the same thing, a pain killer, I've been on Oxycodone(Oxycontin) for years now and no doctor would prescribe them both together, Oxycodone is more then enough for any pain you might have, it's one of the strongest pain killers available. Then you have the Valium & Xanax(benzodiazepines), again both basically the same thing, now if he was just taking one of each of these drugs then I'd say it's normal, but add the cocaine on top of all that and you have a guy who likes to get high. To me it sounds like he was doctor shopping.
Thats not entirely acurate. My parents (mainly my father) both have sever pain, My dad has degenerative disk disease plus he broke his back many yrs ago and has a few other issues. He was on oxycontin and hydrocodon, the hydrocodon was for whats called "break thru " pain. and the oxy was for his daily pain. However he and my mother were having further issues related to the oxy and now they take morphine sulphate. it's a synthetic morphine thats easiler on your system.
My father is in a nursing home due to other heath issue and he needs 24 nursing care, he still takes both painkillers tho now the morhine sulphate is in liquide form plus all the other meds he has to take to stay alive.
Saying that BOTH those painkillers would NEVER be prescribed together is incorrect. The hydorcodon is 10mg and he takes 2 maybe 2 times a day when the pain flares up. Its alot better than pumping extra morshine or oxy into his system AND the hydrocodon works faster it just doesnt last as long.
AS for the otehr meds they found in mays's sytem, keep in mind that many many medications are prescribed by DR's to treat toehr things besides what the main purpose is. Just because someone takes 2 anti-anxiety meds doesn't mean they are BOTH for the anxiety, 1 may be for migraines (my wife is on one that treats her migraines)
One last thing, just beause the toxicology report says they found cocain in his system and that he used it a few days prior isn't 100% accurate that he actually did cocaine. There are some OTC meds that will show up in a peepee tests as coke, opium, and one or two other illeagle drugs. Thats why they ussually take 2 samples when you drug test so that if its positive they can run a far more detailed test to determine what a substance really is due to the possibility of a false positive. It happened to a good friend of mine, the test showed he had opium (iirc) in his sytem but it was actually advil
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Not terribly surprised nor do I really care about it. He's still just as dead as he was before the report. If some celebrity wants to burn their mind of cardiac system out with drugs that's fine with me as long as they don't take anyone else with them and I don't have to pay for keeping them alive. Darwin is always ready with more awards for them.
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Thats not entirely acurate. My parents (mainly my father) both have sever pain, My dad has degenerative disk disease plus he broke his back many yrs ago and has a few other issues. He was on oxycontin and hydrocodon, the hydrocodon was for whats called "break thru " pain. and the oxy was for his daily pain. However he and my mother were having further issues related to the oxy and now they take morphine sulphate. it's a synthetic morphine thats easiler on your system.
My father is in a nursing home due to other heath issue and he needs 24 nursing care, he still takes both painkillers tho now the morhine sulphate is in liquide form plus all the other meds he has to take to stay alive.
Saying that BOTH those painkillers would NEVER be prescribed together is incorrect. The hydorcodon is 10mg and he takes 2 maybe 2 times a day when the pain flares up. Its alot better than pumping extra morshine or oxy into his system AND the hydrocodon works faster it just doesnt last as long.
AS for the otehr meds they found in mays's sytem, keep in mind that many many medications are prescribed by DR's to treat toehr things besides what the main purpose is. Just because someone takes 2 anti-anxiety meds doesn't mean they are BOTH for the anxiety, 1 may be for migraines (my wife is on one that treats her migraines)
One last thing, just beause the toxicology report says they found cocain in his system and that he used it a few days prior isn't 100% accurate that he actually did cocaine. There are some OTC meds that will show up in a peepee tests as coke, opium, and one or two other illeagle drugs. Thats why they ussually take 2 samples when you drug test so that if its positive they can run a far more detailed test to determine what a substance really is due to the possibility of a false positive. It happened to a good friend of mine, the test showed he had opium (iirc) in his sytem but it was actually advil
Yeah I understand that they do prescribe both those pain killers to people, but thats for people who have extreme pain like your father, & I myself have been prescribed both oxy & hydrocodine for the breakthrough pain, I only take the oxy currently, but I'm a paraplegic in a wheelchair and have severe nerve damage that causes intense pain, the result of a bad car accident, Billy Mays didn't seem to have any condition that would require being on both oxy & hydrocodine, like I said those drugs being prescribed together is usually reserved for people who have extreme debilitating pain.
As for the cocaine showing up in his system I'm sure it means he was using cocaine, this was a medical autopsy, the drug tests they use are more accurate then the drug test that are used by sampling urine.
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Went out partying - WOOWOO.
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Yeah I understand that they do prescribe both those pain killers to people, but thats for people who have extreme pain like your father, & I myself have been prescribed both oxy & hydrocodine for the breakthrough pain, I only take the oxy currently, but I'm a paraplegic in a wheelchair and have severe nerve damage that causes intense pain, the result of a bad car accident, Billy Mays didn't seem to have any condition that would require being on both oxy & hydrocodine, like I said those drugs being prescribed together is usually reserved for people who have extreme debilitating pain.
As for the cocaine showing up in his system I'm sure it means he was using cocaine, this was a medical autopsy, the drug tests they use are more accurate then the drug test that are used by sampling urine.
In another article I read it said he had major Back, Hip and knee problems and that he had perscriptions for everything they found in him (obviously excluding the coke)
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Went out partying - WOOWOO.
That's the spirit! :D
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That guy was on coke?
"THIS IS THE BEST ORANGE CLEANER EVER, EVER, EVER... FRIGGEN EVER!"
Nah...
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OK, it was a stupid statement to make blind like that without evidence. First off i would like to say that i have tried coke some good stuff, some terrible, and never really seen the point of the drug. I am not defending its use, and would urge anyone who regularly snorts coke to cease the activity. If you want to be loud and arrogant you dont need a drug as an excuse, just be it.
In the UK, I would suspect that of the current generation, age group 15-30, 'most' people have either accidentaly come into contact with (search for stats on the amount of bank notes that test possitive for cocaine in any given region, its interesting and worrying), tried one line, or abused cocaine. The official figures say 1 in 20 aged 16-59 is a USER of cocaine. Not tried it once, a 'user'.
I think its hard to compare the UK with the US in terms of so called 'recreational' drug use. Its far more widespread in the UK due to 'dance' culture being so popular for over 20 years now. The US obviously has hard drug problems the equal of any nation, but with the exception of marijuana, I don't think the use of drugs is as prevalent amongst middle-class teenagers and twenty-somethings in the US as it is in the UK. Certainly not the use of ecstasy and cocaine.
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I think its hard to compare the UK with the US in terms of so called 'recreational' drug use. Its far more widespread in the UK due to 'dance' culture being so popular for over 20 years now. The US obviously has hard drug problems the equal of any nation, but with the exception of marijuana, I don't think the use of drugs is as prevalent amongst middle-class teenagers and twenty-somethings in the US as it is in the UK. Certainly not the use of ecstasy and cocaine.
Well, for the past 10 years I've been a middle-class teenager and twenty-something, and my experiences have been that cocaine is not exactly rare in the demographic. Neither was ecstasy about 10-7 years ago, though that seems to have dropped off quite a bit.
Keep in mind I'm only talking about what I've seen in my tiny habitat of this nation. I have no idea how it is across the country.
My little habitat is not exactly a poor place though, so that might have something to do with it as well. It's not as though everyone is rich (I know I'm not), but with 50-cent and past CEOs of businesses like Stanley Tool as residents, yeah, there are kids around here with money to splurge on the pricey drugs.
Cocaine has been a drug of choice for many for awhile now.