Colin Powell once bragged about using Ambien ("Everybody here uses [it].").* Since that was before Jackson was working in the White House, I'm guessing he's not the first to be passing out the candy, and I'm sure Senator Cornyn knows all about it.Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, the White House physician nominated to lead the Veterans Affairs Department, provided such “a large supply” of Percocet, a prescription opioid, to a White House Military Office staff member that he threw his own medical staff “into a panic” when it could not account for the missing drugs, according to a summary of questionable deeds compiled by the Democratic staff of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
A nurse on his staff said Dr. Jackson had written himself prescriptions, and when caught, he simply asked a physician assistant to provide him with the medication.
[...]
The document includes allegations that Dr. Jackson regularly distributed Ambien, a prescription sleep aid, to members of the White House staff and members of the news media flying on long overseas trips, as well as another prescription drug to promote wakefulness.
It says that the committee was told that physicians working with Dr. Jackson “felt uncomfortable and refused to be a part of the loose dispensing of drugs to current and former” White House staff members. It also states that Dr. Jackson “also had private stocks of controlled substances.”
[...]
Mr. Cornyn defended Dr. Jackson’s reported distribution of Ambien and other drugs during long trips as nothing out of the ordinary. He said that because Dr. Jackson was a doctor, it was not a problem that he distributed the drugs, even without writing a prescription.
“On overseas travel, yeah, sure, people take Ambien to help them transition through time zones,” he said. “It’s pretty common, I’m led to believe.”
NYT
He has denied he "wrecked a car." Surely that one would be easy enough to prove or disprove. Although, I suppose it's probable that no one made out a report.And at a Secret Service going away party, the doctor got intoxicated and “wrecked a government vehicle,” according to the summary.
[...]
An aide to Senator Jon Tester of Montana, the top Democrat on the committee, said each allegation included in the document was based on information provided by two or more individuals.
A mean drunk.On [one] trip during Barack Obama’s presidency, White House staff members reached out to Dr. Jackson for medical reasons but found him passed out in his hotel room after a night of drinking, Tester aides said. The staff members took the medical supplies they were looking for without waking Dr. Jackson.
The document prepared by the Democratic staff of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee paints a picture of a medical office that was casual with the prescribing and distribution of drugs but terrorized by a mercurial boss, quick to anger. According to the summary, interviewed staff members described Dr. Jackson as “the most unethical person I have ever worked with,” “flat-out unethical” and “incapable of not losing his temper,” among other charges.
Dr. Jackson had been scheduled to testify before the Senate panel on Wednesday, but its top Republican and Democrat announced on Tuesday that the session would be postponed to allow more time to investigate the claims.
* Re Ambien:
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.It inspires sleep-eating, sleep-driving, sleep-shopping, sleep-blogging. Ambien gives you the hallucinatory urge to indulge your most moronic whims — in other words, it turns you into the pitiful jerk you already are. That's the clanger of this drug: The side effect is you.
Insomniacs used to get prescribed sedatives like Tuinal, Valium, Seconal, even Thorazine or lithium, just for their meagerly soporific side effects, which is like sticking your head in the microwave for an earache. But Ambien takes a sharpshooter approach, targeting brain receptors to promote gamma-aminobutyric acid.
[...]
No wonder it's become America's drug. It's the drug that turns America into America.
Rolling Stone
UPDATE:
No comments:
Post a Comment