Posted on 10/04/2017 4:36:03 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
Stephen Paddock, who killed at least 58 people and wounded hundreds more in Las Vegas on Sunday with high-powered rifles, was prescribed an anti-anxiety drug in June that can lead to aggressive behavior, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has learned...
Records from the Nevada Prescription Monitoring Program obtained Tuesday show Paddock was prescribed 50 10-milligram diazepam tablets by Henderson physician Dr. Steven Winkler on June 21. A woman who answered the phone at Winkler’s office would not make him available to answer questions and would neither confirm nor deny that Paddock was ever a patient.
Paddock purchased the drug — its brand name is Valium — without insurance at a Walgreens store in Reno on the same day it was prescribed. He was supposed to take one pill a day.
Diazepam is a sedative-hypnotic drug in the class of drugs known as benzodizepines, which studies have shown can trigger aggressive behavior. Chronic use or abuse of sedatives such as diazepam can also trigger psychotic experiences, according to drugabuse.com...
...A 2015 study published in World Psychiatry of 960 Finnish adults and teens convicted of homicide showed that their odds of killing were 45 percent higher during time periods when they were on benzodiazepines. A year earlier, the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry published a study titled, “Benzodiazepine Use and Aggressive Behavior.” The authors wrote: “It appears that benzodiazepine use is moderately associated with subsequent aggressive behavior.”
Dr. Michael First, a clinical psychiatry professor at Columbia University and expert on benzodiazepines, said the Finnish study speaks for itself. But he also told the Review-Journal on Tuesday that he believes the drugs would be more likely to fuel impulsive aggression than premeditated behavior...
...The Nevada state monitoring report also noted that Winkler prescribed 50 10-milligram tablets of diazepam to Paddock in 2016...
(Excerpt) Read more at reviewjournal.com ...
Why would you want to spoil all of the conspiracy theories by posting a sensible comment?
Diazepam for anxiety? That’s a heavy duty drug for a first prescription. No Xanax, Prozac, valium, bupropion or escitalopram? Diazepam is used in my prison’s psych unit. It’s a heavy hitter for a preliminary diagnosis.
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Disregard the valium comment, I was using actual drug names, not trade names.
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While that just shows a few purchases it doesn’t show all of them. Doctor shopping is nothing new and many of the drugs can be supplied by pharmacies out of state and sent to your door. Several of our patients have described how easy it was to get a 90 day supply sent right through the mail. One had 4 different Doctors in 4 different towns, each writing prescriptions for various amounts. He would submit one prescription locally and 3 would be sent to out of state pharmacies. He would receive as many as 4 prescriptions every quarter. He had built up a pretty good tolerance and was going through 3-4 times the normally prescribed daily dosage. He went through a 7 day medical detox and 120 day in-house rehab. So far he’s been clean for just over a year.
Cash money can make allot of things happen!
Like father like son and he probably realized he was going nuts just like the old man. Boom
Along with Mandalay Bay; too!
“”Paddock bought 50 guns...one at a time.......all legally. 33 were bought in the last 12 months.””
Not sure of Nevada laws but private sales are perfectly legal in TX, It doesn’t say they all came through a dealer.
Since when is this EVER a factor?
But my thoughts are, "Why did ONE MAN think he needed all those guns to do what he ended up doing?"
Another thought, "What is the total count of empty magazines that were found?"
Or even FULL ones yet unused??
Diazepam IS Valium. 10 mg is a pretty light dose. Since the shooter had had a script for the same amount last year, assuming no refills, I don’t think he was abusing it.
Whenever these horrid thing happen, we want to fix blame. We usually point to their meds or some “issue” in their lives.
I vote we just realize that there are truly evil people out there. Stop making excuses for them. Speedy trial and death by hanging in the public square.
Apparently they were all through dealers. They were able to track every single one of them.
I would not want to engage in a witch hunt against Valium or anti-depressants, although some correlation can be found between these medications and killing sprees.
But if the Left sees these incidents as an excuse to go after guns, then it seems like a reasonable strategy to propose legislation to totally change the pharmaceutical business, and to get most of the Democrat voters (they’re all crazy) off their medications of choice.
Such a plan would outrage the Left.
And maybe convince them to back away from an assault on the Second Amendment.
I don’t think a drug caused him to do this. He had obviously already decided to do it.
This would explain the lack of a motive.
The last one is currently the most popular, politically.
“But he also told the Review-Journal on Tuesday that he believes the drugs would be more likely to fuel impulsive aggression than premeditated behavior.”
In other words, Valium doesn’t explain what happened here. There was clearly a lot of premeditation and preparation involved.
Read about the horrific side affects of benzos taken at prescribed doses here: www.benzobuddies.org
Might want to cut back on the coffee, given that there is no evidence at all to support your theory
The bat man theater guy ?
He shouldn’t have passed a NICS check to buy the guns.
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