Driving The National Safety Council estimates that 28% of car crashes, about 1.6 million a year, are due to drivers using cell phones to talk or text. There are about 34,000 deaths while driving each year. Please do the math. Some say the numbers are lower, but you’re still talking perhaps 10,000 deaths – […]
Lazy Cakes – waiting for a new non-prescription drug disaster (2/18/11)
Relaxation Brownies? Lazy Cakes is two ounces of sleeping medication masquerading as a chocolate brownie – an attempt at a “natural pot” brownie, as it’s advertising implies. It contains a warning on the back, four separate lines within a bracket of one quarter of an inch, lines small enough that children will not see them […]
Who’s flying your plane? (2/7/11)
When Your Pilot Falls Asleep – and Locks the Door Sometimes folks fall asleep and you can’t wake them up – not for quite a while. When it’s your SAS pilot flying you from Copenhagen to Stockholm, it does provoke comment. Last year, as reported by Fran Golden in AOL Health, a short hop, one […]
Would you snort sleeping pills to treat your feet? (Silly uses of sleeping pills – 1/27/11)
Steve Tyler Treats His Feet Not everyone snorts prescription sleeping pills to treat their feet. Aerosmith rocker Steve Tyler podiatric self-management included snorting lunesta (eszopiclone.) When he tried it while performing in South Dakota in 2009 he fell off the stage. Please don’t do this when you’re judging American Idol, okay? As fans of the […]
Can sleepwalking kill me, or is inattention more lethal? (12/13/10)
A Killing in Scarborough In 1987 Kenneth Parks, a 23 year old embezzler and gambler who had recently lost his job, drove 14 miles to the home of his mother and father-in-law in Scarborough, Ontario. Taking out a tire iron he beat them both before stabbing them with kitchen knives, killing his mother-in-law and leaving […]