Carrie Fishers' toxicology report

[Anaxarchus]

I was recently browsing autopsy reports and found out that Carrie Fisher had a smorgasbord-drug cocktail in her system at her time of death, it is as follows:

Morphine
Hydrocodone
Heroin
Methamphetamine/MDMA
Cocaine
Demerol
Methadone
Benedryl

I think the media did a good job hiding most of this as it lost popularity after the cause of death was ruled a heart attack - but how could the examiner possibly conclude that drug use as a determining factor, is out of the question?

I get that the toxicology results don't necessarily say that these were all taken in one sitting but i still am curious as to why someone would ever want to take all that, even spread out in a weeks time, especially at 60 years old.

 

[JessFR]

Well, if you use heroin that’ll show up as morphine too. So likely that’s not her taking heroin and morphine, just heroin.

I’ve taken several different opioids at once to compound the effect. And most of the drugs on the list are opioids. I don’t find it that unlikely.

Back when I was on methadone and got monthly drug tests some of those would look a bit like that.

With heroin metabolites, 6mam and morphine, methamphetamine metabolites, methadone, oxycodone, and oxazepam and or diazepam all showing up at once from recent use.

There would be times when mdma and alcohol might show up too. It doesn’t seem inconceivable to me at all.

And her being 60 doesn’t change anything, an addict is an addict.

 

[Pill2Chill]

I was recently browsing autopsy reports and found out that Carrie Fisher had a smorgasbord-drug cocktail in her system at her time of death, it is as follows:

Morphine
Hydrocodone
Heroin
Methamphetamine/MDMA
Cocaine
Demerol
Methadone
Benedryl

I think the media did a good job hiding most of this as it lost popularity after the cause of death was ruled a heart attack - but how could the examiner possibly conclude that drug use as a determining factor, is out of the question?

I get that the toxicology results don't necessarily say that these were all taken in one sitting but i still am curious as to why someone would ever want to take all that, even spread out in a weeks time, especially at 60 years old.

I might agree with the at 60 years old part, but spread over 1 week, that isn't such a crazy amount of drugs to be taking. Granted, you'd be lit 24/7. But I take similar amounts of different drugs on a week (or daily) basis as well. Though I'm only 26.. And I don't use cocaine, meth or mdma very often (I do use 'eurospeed' (amphetamine sulphate). Nor demerol (due to availability), but I take equally strong drugs (oxy, methadone, atm also hydromorphone. Large amounts on a daily basis of most of these (And on a weekly basis even more).

I don't know if I'd still be inclined to do so at age 60 though..

I don't understand how drugs could have been rules out either though. Makes no sense to me at all. Those were some serious drugs to be taking at age 60..

 

[spacejunk]

Methamphetamine/MDMA

is that meth, mdma or both?

i don't know if this is just a copy+paste, but it kinda reads like the person who wrote it doesn't realise they're very different drugs.

i agree it's not that extensive a list. i mean - it is, but most of the drugs there are opiates, which regular users and addicts tend to use interchangeably. at least, i know i used to.

cocaine is pretty basd for the heart though, especially (i imagine) if you combined it with meth (assuming "Methamphetamine/MDMA" refers to meth and mdma - but i've had people try to argue with me before that "mdma is meth" or something, because of it's chemical structure/name. i sometimes think people conflate mdma with methamphetamine because methamphetamine has so much more of a stigma attached to it).

poor carrie, she was a beautiful soul.

 

[JessFR]

Yeah I found that confusing too. I was wondering if perhaps MDMA and Methamphetamine might be hard to tell apart once they've metabolized. That would explain it and it's the case with some other drugs where they're different to start with and have different effects but after sufficient time can't be told apart on the toxicology.

For example Heroin can be told apart from morphine but only for a certain amount of time after taking it.
All my drugs tests when Ive been on methadone showed me positive for morphine, and some for both morphine and 6-Monoacytelmorphine and some morphine alone. Depending on how recently I'd used heroin. None actually showed methamphetamine directly, just methamphetamine metabolites. So it might be similar with meth vs mdma. I don't know.

 

[CFC]

poor carrie, she was a beautiful soul.

I met her once through a friend who knew her pretty well. She really seemed to be. And she had such incredibly severe depression and anxiety. I know she started to talk about this a lot, but it's amazing she lived as long as she did. The saddest thing of all is that she'd been consistently improving for a few years and (I was told) was able to cut back on drug use except for stressful interviews, TV shows etc.

 

[Anaxarchus]

According to the report, methamphetamine and mdma were on the same toxology screen. It was listed in the same format as above so I'm assuming it was one of the two.

 

[spacejunk]

wow - i didn't know you'd met her. that's pretty cool.

i've always found that saying about "never meet your heroes" to be total bullshit, because i've had some amazing times meeting wel-known people i admire.

i don't know what your experience meeting her was like, but (i guess) it's sad to know that she was doing better before her death - but on the other hand, if her death wasn't caused by drugs, i suppose she had an improvement in her quality of life towards the end.
i can't really assume too much about her, but i'm not a fan of hollywood or celebrity culture generally - but she seemed like a genuine person and an artist who stood out in contrast to the regular hollywood phonies.

 

[Anaxarchus]

is that meth, mdma or both?

i don't know if this is just a copy+paste, but it kinda reads like the person who wrote it doesn't realise they're very different drugs.

i agree it's not that extensive a list. i mean - it is, but most of the drugs there are opiates, which regular users and addicts tend to use interchangeably. at least, i know i used to.

cocaine is pretty basd for the heart though, especially (i imagine) if you combined it with meth (assuming "Methamphetamine/MDMA" refers to meth and mdma - but i've had people try to argue with me before that "mdma is meth" or something, because of it's chemical structure/name. i sometimes think people conflate mdma with methamphetamine because methamphetamine has so much more of a stigma attached to it).

poor carrie, she was a beautiful soul.

Upon looking into it a bit more, I found that they sent the results to a lab to do a liver bile analysis after these results that I posted.

The bile analysis determined that in the spectrum of meth, mdma, and mda - she was found positive for mdma specifically.

The same bile analysis also determined that she wasn't on heroin but like before, herion was the "umbrella" drug for opiates. Specifically she had methadone and morphine in her system.

Also worth noting that the highest concentration of any of the substances was Demerol at 7.6 ug/g everything else was below a tenth of a microgram. I'm not sure if that's due to motabolizing factors or not though.

 

[spacejunk]

interesting.

i've heard that demerol is really not a very pleasant drug, interesting tht it was in her system with a whole bunch of other (presumably more 'desirable') drugs.

mda makes sense, given that it is a metabolite of mdma.

 

[motiv311]

I loved Demerol , and when I was in rehab MDMA and amphetamine come in the same test

 

[CFC]

wow - i didn't know you'd met her. that's pretty cool.

i've always found that saying about "never meet your heroes" to be total bullshit, because i've had some amazing times meeting wel-known people i admire.

i don't know what your experience meeting her was like, but (i guess) it's sad to know that she was doing better before her death - but on the other hand, if her death wasn't caused by drugs, i suppose she had an improvement in her quality of life towards the end.
i can't really assume too much about her, but i'm not a fan of hollywood or celebrity culture generally - but she seemed like a genuine person and an artist who stood out in contrast to the regular hollywood phonies.

I've met an unusual number of celebs in my life, not in any way intentional as I'm really the last person to give a shit about that meaningless tripe. It's always just via people I know at parties or events, that kind of thing.

Tbh the film and TV stars I've met seemed largely genuine, whereas people like royals were faker than fake. Not that you can know anyone from a few brief chats, but anyway that's just the impression.

However she seemed really personable and open, a bit tragic in some ways but that added to the personality

 

[CFC]

Demerol can be reasonably euphoric to many, with some NRI/DRI and serotonergic properties, and it was hugely popular back in her addict days. However it's also helpful for diverticulitis pain/cramps, which could account for her use, as I think I read she had longstanding GI troubles.

 

[CFC]

As for the death, I don't really think anyone's truly hoodwinked into believing that years of coke/stims, alcohol and yo-yo weight issues didn't cause some serious long-term cardiovascular damage, including her given what she's talked and written about, and even if they weren't the immediate cause of death.

 

[Anaxarchus]

... when I was in rehab MDMA and amphetamine come in the same test

The liver bile test is how they determined the specifics between the two. It's a very in-depth way to determine post mortem toxicology.

Most other tests are not able to pinpoint exact amounts of a substance. Instead they just provide a negitive or positive result and throw the drugs into their main classes i.e barbiturates, opiates, mda, cannabis etc.

A long time ago I was on daily reporting probation and was also prescribed Adderall . When I got a UA, assuming they didn't send it to a lab, it wouldn't be able to show if the positive substance was meth, ex, or speed so they just gave me a pass in that category all together

 

[JessFR]

Do you know if they sent it to a lab?

When I was getting monthly drug tests for methadone, they only used the basic strip test to decide to send it to the lab or not. If it came back positive in anything, they always did. And man did they check for EVERYTHING, every drug, every antidepressant, I think they detected seroquel once, must have been from a cut, anyhow, must of cost them a fortune with how many people they had.

And for what? I came back positive EVERY SINGLE MONTH without fail from the time I joined to when I left 2 years later, they never did anything apart from constantly tell me how I was gonna kill myself.

 

[spacejunk]

And for what? I came back positive EVERY SINGLE MONTH without fail from the time I joined to when I left 2 years later, they never did anything apart from constantly tell me how I was gonna kill myself.

a lot of drug testing is driven by the drug testing industry, sadly.
not a lot of rhyme or reason to it. I once got drug tested for a job in a community library - and I was on tour with my band (partying a lot and taking all sorts of drugs) when they called me up to tell me I had to go in for a pre-employment urine test.

(without going into specifics, I passed though. fuck that shit)

I've met an unusual number of celebs in my life, not in any way intentional as I'm really the last person to give a shit about that meaningless tripe. It's always just via people I know at parties or events, that kind of thing.

Tbh the film and TV stars I've met seemed largely genuine, whereas people like royals were faker than fake. Not that you can know anyone from a few brief chats, but anyway that's just the impression.

However she seemed really personable and open, a bit tragic in some ways but that added to the personality

ha - you've met royals! that's interesting. I've known some journalists that have known various royals, but never really considered what they must be like to meet.

I've not met a lot of famous actors - but I've been friends and hung out with plenty of well-known musicians (and a few legit "rock stars" lol) and a few politicians (who wouldn't be known by too many people out of Australia, to be fair).

I think it was carrie's vulnerability, and her honesty about her struggles that made her so relatable. it was all part of her charm - and why it was so sad that she was one of the great people that the world lost in 2016.

that year started off with the death of David Bowie, and finished up with the death of Princess Leia
also, she was brutally honest, and not afraid to call it as she saw it - rather than being a sycophant of celebrity-culture. she was an artist, rather than a "celebrity", and she did things her own way.
pretty impressive in an industry that has very little value for women over the age of 30.

 

[cj]

It was probably the coke that did her in. It's really bad for older people.

 

[SirTophamHat]

^^^ especially if she ever combined it with drinking, cocaethylene is incredibly cardiotoxic.

honestly I thought Carrie was sober. i'm hesitant to assume she was partying hard AF as first glance at that list could suggest. for all we know the MDMA was in a controlled setting with a therapist (celebs always have access to cutting edge treatments). it seems she was on maintenance for an opiate addiction, unless she was using methadone recreationally. we always knew she liked coke... i'd guess she was self-medicating with a few different things and her heart gave out from cumulative stress/toxicity.

 

[JessFR]

Probably a bit of both. Age and drug use.