In the United Kingdom, approximately 1.5 million people are addicted to benzodiazepines, a group of sedatives often prescribed for anxiety. Many of these addicts are elderly people who were prescribed the drugs decades ago and may still suffer debilitating side effects such as paranoia, lethargy, fatigue, dizziness, and memory loss. Jo Waters of the Daily Mail UK writes that many people don’t realize the drugs are the problem.
Three-time Emmy winner Edie Falco became a TV icon playing strong-willed mob wife Carmela in the HBO series “The Sopranos.” Now she’s already received a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nomination for her starring role as a flawed yet no-nonsense nurse on Showtime network’s critically-acclaimed dark comedy, “Nurse Jackie.”
Read more about Edie Falco’s Past Addiction Helps Inform Her Role on “Nurse Jackie”
Former teen idol Corey Haim died Wednesday morning of an apparent drug overdose, according to Los Angeles police. Haim, who has battled an addiction to prescription drugs for years, collapsed in the bedroom of his mother’s Oakwood apartment just before 1 a.m., police sources told TMZ.com.
Read more about Corey Haim Dies of Apparent Prescription Drug Overdose
While cases of performance-enhancing substance abuse by professional athletes are not unfamiliar to national headlines, what may go unnoticed is the flip-side to the story: drug dependency among pain-stricken athletes. Participating in the most grueling and physically demanding contact sport, American football players are expected to endure pain and continue playing. To maintain performance, players are often advised to take pain medications to numb injury, and inevitably ignore early indications of serious complications.
Read more about Prescription Drug Abuse and Chronic Pain among NFL Players
Steven Tyler, lead singer of the band Aerosmith, has entered a treatment center for pain management and an addiction to prescription painkillers resulting from 10 years of performance injuries, according to People magazine.
Read more about Steven Tyler in Rehab for Painkiller Addiction
Janet Jackson told ABC’s Robin Roberts in an exclusive interview that her family was not naive about Michael Jackson’s drug problem, saying that she reached out to her brother throughout the years, but was unsuccessful.
Sworn statements by investigators revealed that Anna Nicole Smith was given many dangerous drugs over the three years before her death, including while she was pregnant. Two doctors charged in connection with Smith’s death allegedly also had personal relationships with their patient, the court documents said.
Actor Burt Reynolds, 73, has checked himself into a rehab facility in West Palm Beach, Florida, to be treated for an addiction to painkillers.
The actor’s manager, Erik Kritzer, said in a statement that Reynolds was struggling after a recent back surgery and “realized that he was in the prison of prescription pain pills.” Kritzer said Reynolds hopes his story will help others in similar situations and that they will not try to solve the problem by themselves.
Toxicology results finally showed that Michael Jackson had lethal amounts of the drug propofol in his system when he died. Los Angeles coroner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran reached that preliminary conclusion after reviewing toxicology results carried out on Jackson’s blood, according to an affidavit.
Read more about Jackson: Lethal Amounts of Propofol in System
Dr. Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson’s former personal physician, left Jackson alone and under the influence of a powerful anesthetic the morning the pop singer died, according to three sources. By the time Murray returned from making phone calls, the singer had stopped breathing.