ask Peter Buck how that plan works out.

Who cares - the guy isn’t likely to drive himself anywhere or operate heavy equipment in the near future.  Why is this any of our business?

it’s stupid to report, but i can say that fully 50% of every single person i know who has ever taken ambien (that i know of, anyway) has suffered some type of mondo bizarro hallucinating incident.  so i don’t know if i buy that it’s really so “rare” to suffer some serious mentally impairing side effects.

but i can say that fully 50% of every single person i know who has ever taken ambien (that i know of, anyway) has suffered some type of mondo bizarro hallucinating incident

Yeah, me too. Although I think it’s somewhat related to the type of people you know. Creative, imaginative folks: be careful with Ambien. Every creative, imaginative person I have known who had taken Ambien has eventually ended up on a pretty fucked up mental trip.

(For me, it seems to be about every 5 doses. I swore it off after the second time.)

I have weird effects to ambien too, but I consider it more of a perk. I take it and get into bed and sketch until I’m too tired and then the next morning I have way trippy drawings that I either can’t or just barely remember doing. It’s never been upsetting emotionally and I’ve never done anything other than draw and I sleep great. Good times!

Go find some American not on a drug of some sort. I have lots and lots of reasons not to vote for McCain, but his taking Ambien wouldn’t rank in the top 100.

Note to self:  develop raging insomnia ASAP.

I’ve always womdered what would happed if Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama were junkies like Cindy McCain, and why Cindy never did any jail time:

Cindy McCain founded and ran the American Voluntary Medical Team in 1988, a non-profit organization which provided emergency medical and surgical care to children in Third World countries. Source The organization organized trips for doctors and nurses to third-world countries where disaster had struckSource. In 1992, volunteer doctors began complaining that Cindy McCain had been using their DEA numbers. The Drug Enforcement Agency itself had been calling and asking about rather sizable orders of Percocet, an addictive painkiller. Hundreds of Percocets were missing from AMVT’s inventory.

The McCain camp had organized interviews to head off a more negative story that was pending publication in the alternative weekly Phoenix New Times. That piece centered on a former American Voluntary Medical Team employee who accused Cindy McCain in a lawsuit of ordering him to conceal “improper acts” and “misrepresent facts in a judicial proceeding.” The details were in a 212-page report from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office that was about to become public when McCain arranged the interviews in 1994 for Cindy’s “personal admission”. Source In 1994, Cindy McCain confessed to problems the media was already poised to reveal. To selected reporter, she admitted to a painkiller addiction, and said she had stolen drugs from her non-profit organization, the American Voluntary Medical Team - sometimes popping as many as 20 in a day. Source Cindy McCain claimed that the drug addiction itself happened after painful back and knee problems and was exacerbated by the stress of the Keating Five banking scandal that had ensnared her husband. Source A few weeks later, the Variety Club of Arizona had to cancel its Humanitarian of the Year Award dinner in her honor because of poor ticket sales.

At the time, legal experts told the Phoenix New Times that had she not been married to John, she likely would have been sentenced to federal prison. Tom Gosinski, the director of government and international affairs for the American Voluntary Medical Team - worried his own name had been used (he would eventually learn that it had) - tipped off the DEA to investigate Cindy’s drug theft, also accused Cindy of asking him to lie concerning her drug use when the McCains were applying to adopt a baby from Bangladesh.

Other McCain news: Will the media pick up on this the way they did with Obama and Ludacris?  My guess is a huge NO.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/27/0050/93650/765/575892

Um, for the three nights I was on Ambien, I sleep-walked, -blogged, and -medicated. Knowing McCain, he’d sleep-nuke.

Exactly, Jeffrey!

There are plenty of medicines that it would be nothing but ablism to fret over, but no POTUS should be taking medicines that can cause hallucinations or sleep actions.

Do we want the 3 AM phone call to be handled while sleep-talking?

what happens if he’s on ambien and “the 3 am phone call” comes in?