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Friday, January 19, 2018
Not quite José Fernández-level impairment but… Roy Halladay had morphine in his system when the plane he was piloting crashed and he tragically died in November, according to Halladay’s autopsy report, released Friday.
Zolpidem, the generic name for Ambien, and amphetamines were found in Halladay’s system.
As TMZ points out via the Food and Drug Administration, the amount of Zolpidem found in Halladay’s system (72 ng/ml) is more than enough to impair a driver and increase the risk of an accident.
Halladay had a blood alcohol content of 0.01, according to the autopsy report.
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1. Pat Rapper's Delight (as quoted on MLB Network) Posted: January 20, 2018 at 12:21 PM (#5610030)A sad story gets even sadder.
Morphine is not the problem. Flying a plane when you're on morphine is the problem.
Of course, it could have been codeine which is metabolized to morphine.
On the gripping hand, you shouldn't be flying with codeine, either.
Not that would be useful for pain. I've been given morphine, and you feel great. But, it's pretty obvious you shouldn't be doing anything that involves skill.
If it was Tylenol-3 with codeine, you still shouldn't, but you could probably get away with driving a car if you were careful.
But doing stunts in a plane? Insanity.
Seems like taking flying lessons shouldn't really be necessary to "learn" that principle.
Or, you know, it should be blatantly self-evident to anyone who has any idea what an airplane is.
A lot of stupid people probably think about it like it's a boat. Ignoring the difference between 10-15 knots and 150. That 3rd dimension is a #####, too.
Yep, that's the one that gets ya.
My mother takes morphine daily for back pain because over the past 20 years she developed a tolerance to everything else, both before and after surgery. She says she doesn't have any side effects from morphine (I, on the other hand, freaked out), and she functions just fine. Again, though, it took a long time for her to get to that point.
So (depending on how much was still flowing around the blood stream I suppose) 1/2 of him was high, the other 1/2 was trying to go to sleep and his heart was racing trying to keep him awake. Super.
The only side-effect I ever got was the stereotypical itchy face. It's by far the best drug for post-surgical pain, but the bastards never want to give it out anymore. I tell them, I've had 8 surgeries and been on narcotics 8 times, for up to two month. If I was going to get addicted, it would have happened already.
Were you blinking excessively and itching your face when you asked them? They might have thought you WERE hooked already. ;-)
Bingo.
Isn’t constipation the classic side-effect? So much so that opiates are the classic anti-diarrheal drug. Maybe there are ways of balancing that. I’m not actually asking you to ask your mom, just thinking aloud :)
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Arch Stanton on the phone, in Anytown, USA...
Arch: Hey, Mom?
Mom: Yes, honey?
Arch: Does the morphine make it hard to poop?
Mom: What?
Arch: Does the white horse stop you up?
Mom: Ewwww.....honey, that's not.....really......
Arch: Come on Mom, there are some guys on a baseball board discussing opiates and I told them you are immune to their effects, so they asked about being blocked up. I have to give them an answer...
Mom: <crickets>
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It’s only one opioid receptor subtype involved in gut motility, the mu subtype which has no analgesic or euphoric effect. Immodium AD targets this receptor if I recall my pharmacology correctly.
Forget it, they're on a roll.
It’s not pearl clutching to call this massively reckless.
I mean, there's no indication that any of the substances found in Halladay's system were responsible for his actions or his demise, but it indicates a lack of attention to one's own safety that is certainly very dangerous.
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