Online Pharmacy Medicine Blog

Until recently, it was more common for celebrities to die from illegal drugs than from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. But as prescription drug abuse has become a larger problem for our society as a whole, we have seen an increasing number of celebrities die as a result.

Just since 2007, we have lost Heath Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith and now, possibly, King of Pop Michael Jackson because of prescription drugs.

“This is not something that has been unexpected… because of the medications which Michael was under,” Jackson family attorney Brian Oxman said shortly after the singer’s death. Jackson reportedly was taking Xanax, Zoloft and Demerol at the time of his death.

Which drugs are the most likely to cause accidental drug deaths? In many cases, it’s not one drug — it’s a combination of drugs that can be deadly when taken together.

Here are 10 of the most famous accidental celebrity prescription drug deaths and the medications that caused them. You’ll notice several no prescription drugs that have played a role in multiple celebrity deaths, including Valium, Xanax and Vicodin.

1. Marilyn Monroe: Nembutal, chloral hydrate

2. Elvis Presley: Placidyl, Dexedrine

3. Judy Garland: Seconal

4. Howard Hughes: Valium, codeine

5. Heath Ledger: OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax, Valium, Restoril

6. Dorothy Dandrige (1940s/50s actress): Imipramine

7. Dana Plato (Diff’rent Strokes): Vanadom, Vicodin

8. Keith Moon (The Who): Heminevrin

9. Rob Pilatus (Milli Vanilli): methadone

10. Robert Walker (1940s/50s actor): sodium amytal

Viagra was created to treat erectile dysfunction, generally among men middle-aged and older. Unfortunately, Pfizer’s “Viva Viagra!” ad campaigns — along with tantalizing warnings about four-hour erections — have turned the drug into a popular aphrodisiac among healthy young men.

It’s a trend that has just claimed the life of a 28-year-old Russian man. The U.K.’s Sun reports:

A sex-mad Russian died after guzzling a bottle of Viagra pills to keep him going for a 12-hour orgy with two women pals.

The women had bet mechanic Sergey Tuganov £3,000 that he wouldn’t be able to satisfy them both non-stop for the half-day sex marathon.

But minutes after winning the wager, the randy 28-year-old dropped dead with a heart attack, revealed Moscow police.

One of the women, named only as Alina, said: “We called emergency services but it was too late, there was nothing they could do.”

Chances of discouraging Viagra abuse at this point are slim, medical experts say, because the drug is mostly prescribed by general practitioners, who have little choice but to trust their patients when they say they are having erectile dysfunction problems.

What’s more, research indicates Viagra may indeed enhance sexual performance among young men — although exactly how, and how much, is undetermined.

According to news reports:

Viagra does not turn healthy guys into sexual supermen. But it certainly does something down there. To find out exactly what ED drugs do to healthy young guys, we turn to research coming out of Italy. Scientists at the University of Florence gave 60 healthy young men with no erection issues a pill that was either a 25-milligram tablet of sildenafil or a placebo. Talk about messing with people’s minds!

Anyway, the upshot was that “there were no differences between the two groups in the reported improvement of erection quality.”

However, the drug did cause “a significant reduction of the postejaculatory refractory time.” In other words, guys who got the real thing were ready for action a lot sooner than the others.

Pfizer officially discourages healthy men from taking Viagra.