Ridiculous Story of the Week: Accidental
They say that the dose makes the poison. There is also a term called MTD or Maximum Tolerated Dose or the highest dose of a pharmacological treatment that will produce the desired effect without unacceptable toxicity. Got it? It turns out that with heroin and cocaine you may not know what that amount is. That is why people die ALL THE TIME. And this is why this story is so sad and ridiculous. The headline goes:
‘Modern Family’ actor Jackson Odell died of accidental drug overdose at sober living facility, coroner says
We have a major drug problem in this country. It seems to be that softening this guy’s death by calling it accidental when he was playing with fire doesn’t help. It happened in a sober living facility, no less! Maybe the coroner was trying to saying it wasn’t a suicide? Maybe it’s a legal term? I don’t know. I’m not sure it matters. The fact that people are dying in sober living places with heroin and coke means we still don’t have great answers to help these people.
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You were correct in thinking the term ‘accidental’ indicates the substance was not taken as a means of suicide. I don’t know whether it is a legal term or psychological, but I use it regularly in the ED.
Being at a sober living facility suggests to me that the overdose was probably a relapse…and that is when people are most likely to OD and/or die… I see it nearly every day in the ED. They just don’t realize that their tolerance has waned…