Methadone Named in Celebrity Death
Posted by Childress on September 30, 2006
Daniel Smith, the son of glitter-gal Anna Nicole Smith, reportedly had methadone and two anti-depressants. AP reports:
Anna Nicole Smith’s 20-year-old son died from a lethal combination of methadone and two antidepressant drugs, a U.S.-based pathologist who conducted a private autopsy said Wednesday.
Toxicology tests showed Daniel Smith had methadone, Zoloft and Lexapro in his system when he died Sept. 10 in a hospital room in the Bahamas where his former Playboy playmate mother was recuperating from giving birth to a daughter, according to Cyril Wecht.
“The fact that we have these drugs and the levels of the drugs overwhelmingly and most logically point to this being a tragic, accidental, drug-related death,” Wecht told The Associated Press from his home in the Pittsburgh area.
Wecht said it was impossible to tell which of the drugs actually was responsible for Smith’s drug. He called the death “a ‘classical’ combination of the drugs which had a lethal ‘cumulative effect on the central nervous system.’”
“Coroners working around the country, we see this in people taking two or three drugs or more,” he said. The low levels of each drug suggest he did not die from an overdose, he added.
