August 30, 2009

• Mixing Drugs for pleasure or pain just might Kill You

  I’m an “old fogey” at age 56. Heck, I even live in a “senior” community. However, because I never married nor sired progeny, I still somewhat “feel” young. As I’ve written in this blog many times, I used to use a lot of drugs. I used to brag that I sampled every substance at one time or another, except for downers or heroin. Little by little, as I aged, I would drop one drug after another from my palette, for one reason or another. I smoked marijuana for a long time, but I even stopped this a while back, simply because the price of the drug got too “high”, as it were. When I began smoking, an ounce cost $10.00. When I last bought an ounce, about two years ago, it cost over $200.00. (And I didn’t even use the “designer” marijuana which cost even more!)

  We live in an age where there is quite a stigma attached to the ingesting of drugs. I like to brag (there I go again) that I was never an “addict” and I could take as much as I wanted because I would never harm myself. I watched quite a few of my friends and acquaintences waste away, both physically and financially, because of their (over)use of methamphetamine or crack cocaine. I smoked cocaine when it was still called “freebasing” and I can still recall that my most vibrant “hallucination” when stoned on a high that cost about $300.00 for ten minutes was that of winged $100.00 bills flying out the window. If pot were more in line with my budget, then I’d probably purchase some. I won’t lie. I like the feeling of being “high”. But I’m a pragmatist. (And, as an “old fogey” I suppose I’ve garnered some wisdom in between the “highs”.)

  I used to drink a lot too. Now I drink far more raspberry iced tea than anything alcoholic. Just this past week, I saw that the market in which I buy my groceries sold Icehouse, which used to be my favorite beer. I bought a 32 ounce can (the only way they sold it), and poured me a couple of icy cold glasses. I was amazed. I didn’t even like the taste! I wonder if I were offered a “reefer” if I’d even like the taste or the effects of marijuana anymore, even though I sometimes do “crave” a hit  just for old time’s sake.

  What prompted me to pull out the word processor and write one of my sporadic blog entries was the news I read this morning that Michael Jackson’s death (by prescription drugs) is being ruled a homicide. I’ll forego the links which I usually provide, and just free associate about what this made me ponder about drugs in society today.

  Michael (who was 50) was supposedly “killed” by a cocktail of sleep medicine, including an anaesthetic (propofol) used by doctors to put people out during surgery. Michael’s doctor (although he claims he was trying to wean the pop star off the more dangerous drugs) injected (through an IV drip) the lethal combination of drugs into his body in order that he might be able to sleep. Undoubtedly, one of Michael’s problems was that he was not sleeping enough. Now he’s sleeping forever.

  The fact that a doctor (although one in Michael’s employ) prescribed this lethal combo bothers me, and I’m sure it’s going to bother the doctor, esp. if the homicide charges are directed toward him. (According to the news report in the L.A. Times, prosecuting the doctor might be difficult to do.)

  I immediately remembered that Elvis Presley died of a drug combo, and his doctor was given some of the blame. (Although Elvis’ death was not ruled a “homicide”.) The Beatle’s manager Brian Epstien died at age 32 after mixing drugs with alcohol. When it happened, the press tired to make his death a “suicide”. A lot of famous pop musicians from “back in the day” died when mixing up their drugs of choice. Usually without a doctor’s help. Janis Joplin. Jimi Hendrix. Jim Morrison of the Doors. Comic John Belushi. (The list is even longer, but I’m not doing any “internet searches” or links for this entry.)

  Times change. But overactive drug habits don’t, it would seem.

  I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately myself. I was telling a friend just the other day that it would be nice to have some pot again. I used to smoke a bowl in the evening before bed while watching a movie. Besides the fact that I’d have to rewind the presentation a dozen or more times when my mind would wander off to some other drug addled tangent while watching, the drug did help me to sleep. As a result of perhaps overextending myself now that my doctor has taken me off the cane, after almost a year and a half of walking with “assistance” before and after my hip revision surgery, I am finding my muscles are very “tired’ at night, and sometimes it takes a while for me to get to sleep. I’ve always had a bit of insomnia, but I’m attempting to deal with this new wrinkle without the use of any sort of drugs.

  I’ve read that chemistry is supposed to help the human body. We take drugs for all our ills. Instead of housecalls and a healthy lifestyle, our doctors seem to prescribe drugs for ALL our ills these days. I see my doctor regularly, and right after the surgery, I was taking 5 separate drugs. Two of them were to placate the effects of the pain pills alone. I was a bit nervous about taking the pain pills, because I’ve read and heard that they are quite addictive. I would only take them when the pain got too intense, anyway.

  This same society which seems to be driven by the whims of the pharmaceutical manufacturers, disdains the use of steroids to build up the body. Marion Jones was stripped of her Olympic gold medals. Any sportsman caught “using” these days is immediately scorned. However, I’ve read about future “brain drugs”. (Which makes me remember my “acid trips” on LSD in the 70s) which are supposed to help our cognitive powers. Seems that the subject of drugs is always going to be a double edged sword. (or double sided pill!)

  Is mankind going to be alright without any of these various drugs? Of will mankind begin taking more and more of them? Or will mankind perish, frothing at the mouth, too early and in his prime, because he mixed the wrong couple or three drugs together, perhaps at the behest of his own doctor?

  My ex roommate Cancerboy had quite a coctail of drugs he had to injest, attempting to prolong his life. The cancer (or was it the drugs, including the poisonous chemo) got him in the end.

  In other countries on this great spinning globe of ours, people perish because they don’t have enough food to eat! Here in America, our famous are dropping like flies because they mix and match drugs which are supposed to be engineered to help them. And there doesn’t really seem to be any consensus on which drugs are “good” or “bad” for the human body, either, doesn’t there? I’m constantly reading that something is good, then bad for me.

  Bottom line. Common sense. If you mix your drugs, the result might be lethal, and you could die “before your time”. I wouldn’t even listen to a doctor who doesn’t prescribe alternative methods of curing your ills rather than just prescribing the first pill from whichever drug manufacturer he’s getting kickbacks.

  I’m pleased with my (hopefully healthy) drug free lifestyle. I don’t know whether a hit of pot every now and then would kill me. I can’t in all veracity say that smoking dope didn’t cause me to “experiment” with other more mind expanding or degrading drugs either, cause in the late 70s and early 80s, I tried a lot of them. I listen to my doctor, but I tell him if I think there might be another alternative instead of taking a drug he’s prescribing. Now that I’m back to taking power walks, I intend to stop taking my cholesterol medicine for a while. Then I’ll go in for a cholesterol check, and if the diet and exercise works, like it did last time, I won’t need the drug. One less drug to take.

  As with every thing in life, things are more complicated than they seem upon first glance. I’d hate to be Michael Jackson’s doctor. (who gave up his practice to administer to the king of pop exclusively.) He made a lethal mistake, which just might bring charges against him for murder! Society relies upon drugs far too much, while seeming to condemn a small cadre of them. Is it any wonder so many persih when receiving so many mixed signals?

  • 3:34 pm
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