The official coroner’s report on Wayne Static‘s death has been released, and the results are another damning indicator that America’s love affair with prescription drugs is recklessly ignorant and far more dangerous than many realize.
Despite initial claims from Static’s publicist saying drugs were not involved in the rocker’s November passing, the coroner’s report states that Static’s death was a direct result of overindulgence in both prescription drugs and alcohol.
A portion of the report states:
On November 1, at approximately 0700 hours, [Wayne] and his wife went to bed. His wife stated that just prior to going to bed, he crushed one-half of a 30 mg oxycodone pill and consumed it. The oxycodone had been prescribed to his wife. He also drank an unknown amount of alcohol. His wife awoke at around 1530 hours. She found the decedent dead in the bed and called 911 at 1547 hours. Paramedics arrived and confirmed death at 1600 hours, noting rigor mortis and lividity. There was no evidence of foul play or any indication a struggle had taken place.
The official cause of death is listed as “mixed prescription drug (oxycodone, hydromorphone, alprazolam) with alcohol toxicity, hours, due to chronic prescription drug and alcohol abuse, years.”
Wayne Static was found dead in his home on November 4.
We Demonize The Wrong Drugs
I don’t write this article because there are legions of Static-X fans out there. I couldn’t name a Static-X song if you had a gun to my head, and Wayne’s passing was the first I’d thought of him in over a decade. Chances are, you’re in the same boat.
This article was written to further outline the astounding willful ignorance of legislators, law enforcement and educators in outlining the dangers of prescription drug abuse. While we incarcerate millions for a harmless plant with voluminous evidence of medical benefits, a culture of Xanax and Oxy poppers is taking firm hold in America, wreaking absolute havoc among communities suckered into a haze of cognitive dissonance.
The pill that makes you feel funny and has a staggering list of dangerous side effects is supposedly safe, because your doctor prescribed it and the pharmaceutical industry has fine-tuned the art of marketing to your most vulnerable instincts – you’ve undoubtedly seen the charming ads promising a better life, with a list of side effects worse than Ebola. Meanwhile, the plant with thousands of medical benefits, industrial uses and eons of safe use among civilization is labeled a horrible threat to personal and public safety. But on what grounds?
With a widespread proven track record, Xanax and Oxycodone/Oxycontin make junkies out of people who would never buy from a street dealer. And depending on where you live, the industry may be actively preying upon this fact: of all the oxycodone prescribed in America in the first half of 2010, 98% was dispensed in Florida. According to the state medical examiner’s office, an average of 7 Floridians die from prescription drug overdoses every day — more than from car accidents.
Hating the plant, celebrating the pill
Meanwhile, government officials and misinformation specialists insist that the real threat is cannabis, a plant which has caused zero human deaths in thousands of years of recorded use. While 210,200 people rot in prison for non-violent drug offenses, a culture of reckless pill-popping indulgence has sidestepped the cop cat-and-mouse game, putting a generation of ignorant youth at great risk.
Providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for painkillers in 2012. Medicare agreed to cover nearly 27 million Schedule 2 prescriptions.
On the explosion of “pill mills” in America, Medical Practice Insider notes that the public “demand and cost on the prescription painkiller front allows for pill mills to gestate — but it’s the legalities and underfunded digital resources that allow for them to thrive.”
“Certain legislation, like Tennessee’s Intractable Pain Treatment Act, has been accused of establishing a realm where pill mills can flourish,” the article continues. “Put into effect in 2001, the Tennessee measure was meant to make drugs, like the newly developed oxycodone, more accessible to patients with cancer and intractable pain. What the act ended up facilitating was an “explosion in use” of prescription painkillers in locales like Sullivan County (which saw 11 pain clinics emerge to meet the demand), according to District Attorney General Barry Staubus.”
The bottom line: Popping pills is dangerous, far more dangerous than a brand name and doctor’s approval suggest. Mixing alcohol exponentially increases the risk. Common sense would suggest that those in search of chemical escapism should use whatever natural means they can (such as cannabis) before resorting to pills, but a society built upon institutional authority and misinformation will consistently make the wrong choices – as we see in the rise of recreational Pfizer Culture.
Inform yourselves. There are far less deadly ways to get faded than to misuse prescription drugs.
