AMY'S PILL PORTRAIT

From: http://www.stylist.co.uk/

Singer & other stars honoured in collage

The late, great Amy Winehouse has received an unusual tribute in the form of a portrait made from pills. San Francisco-based artist Jason Mecier used 5,000 multicoloured tablets to create the intricate work, in honour of the Back to Black singer's short but remarkable life.

Mecier is well-known for his wacky celebrity collages, which he builds from beer tops, sweets, trash and other unusual materials. Stars including Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson and Shirley Bassey have been lovingly re-created in this way - and some are apparently so enamoured by the idea they contribute items for Mecier to feature in their portraits. See examples of some of Mecier's best celebrity pieces, below, and immerse yourself in a world of junk.

Simply click on an image to launch the gallery.

Picture Credit: Rex Features

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Cleopatra died of drug cocktail not snake bite

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Cleopatra did not die from a snake bite but a lethal drug cocktail that included opium and hemlock, according to German scientists.

Allan Hall, in Berlin

Cleopatra, as played by Elizabeth Taylor, in the 1963 film. Photo: Alamy

The Queen of the Nile ended her life in 30BC and it has always been held that it was the bite of an asp – now called the Egyptian cobra – which caused her demise.

Now Christoph Schaefer, German historian and professor at the University of Trier, is presenting evidence that aims to prove drugs and not the reptile were the cause of death.

"Queen Cleopatra was famous for her beauty and was unlikely to have subjected herself to a long and disfiguring death," he said.

He journeyed with other experts to Alexandria, Egypt, where they consulted ancient medical texts and snake experts.

"Cleopatra wanted to remain beautiful in her death to maintain her myth," he says on the Adventure Science show screened by the German television channel ZDF.

"She probably took a cocktail of opium, hemlock and aconitum. Back then this was a well-known mixture that led to a painless death within just a few hours whereas the snake death could have taken days and been agonising."

Cleopatra reigned from 51BC to 30BC and was the last person to rule Egypt as an Egyptian pharaoh. After she died, Egypt became a Roman province.

She was an ally of the Roman emperor Julius Caesar, and established a relationship with the Roman General Mark Anthony. They had three children together and there are letters that suggest she married him, although both were already married; she to a brother and he had a wife in Rome.

In 44 BC, after the assassination of Caesar, she aligned with Antony in opposition to Caesar’s legal heir, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian

After losing the Battle of Actium to Octavian’s forces, Antony committed suicide. Cleopatra followed suit, aged 39 on August 12, 30BC.

Corey Haim found dead of overdose

by Jeff Labrecque

Image Credit: Michael Bezjian/WireImage.com

Actor Corey Haim, 38, is dead after an accidental drug overdose. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Coroner confirmed that Haim, who battled substance addiction for several years, was found unresponsive in an Oakwood apartment and pronounced dead at Providence St. Joseph’s Medical Center at 2:15 a.m. this morning. His mother, according to FOX station KTLA, was in the apartment at the time.

Wis. mom teaches teen son how to shoot heroin, son dies of OD

By Emily Kaiser

Photo by nicasaurusrex

​A 46-year-old Burlington mom is in some serious trouble after she allegedly taught her 16-year-old son how to shoot heroin. The teen ended up overdosing and now prosecutors connecting her to the death. Parent of the year award! Thank you Wisconsin for showing us everything we don't want to be in life

Patricia L. Strosina is charged with intentionally contributing to the delinquency of a child resulting in death. She could face 25 years in prison if convicted in connection to her son's Sep. 14 death.

When police found the teen, he was slumped over a desk at his dad's house with a syringe, a burned spoon and other drug paraphernalia. He died of an overdose of heroin and cocaine.

The story of this teen's fall into hard drugs is extremely depressing, especially for any parent who actually cares about their kids.

Several witnesses, including a case worker, told investigators that the teen had been shooting heroin with his mother and that she originally taught him how to do it. She would even bring him along on drug runs and shoot up with him. Witnesses even saw her shoot him up. Strosina admitted to doing drugs with her son and said she used heroin with him a week before his death.

More from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The sheriff's department investigator was told that Patricia Strosina would take her son along with her to buy heroin and that she would "not cut Ray off because he would get sick" from withdrawal.

The woman also was seen smoking marijuana and crack cocaine with the boy, according to the complaint.

One witness described how Strosina, her son and others would shoot up in Strosina's car after a drug run and how the only conversation that took place in the vehicle would be about "who would get the first needle and who would get the last bit of heroin."

She said on one occasion, after a drug buy, that she shot heroine while driving before passing it to her son in the back seat so he could use the drug.

Plea to ease curbs on 'miracle' heroin drug

• Naxalone used to revive users who have overdoses
• Some fear proposals could encourage riskier habits

• Denis Campbell, health correspondent
• guardian.co.uk

The government's advisers on illegal substances want curbs eased on a controversial "Lazarus" drug that reverses heroin overdoses, in an effort to cut the rising death toll among addicts.

When a heroin user has an overdose, one injection of naloxone revives them from unconsciousness and gives them enough time for medical help to arrive. It is already used by ambulance crews, casualty staff and out of hours GPs faced with someone who has taken a potentially fatal dose of heroin or another opiate.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the body that advises the Home Office, is pushing for naloxone to be made much more widely available so that people working with the UK's estimated 300,000 heroin addicts can stock it.

The ACMD has asked the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the government's medicines watchdog, to allow frontline drugs workers, managers of hostels for the homeless and other staff who may witness an overdose to retain and inject the drug.

In a letter to the MHRA, Prof Les Iversen, chair of the ACMD's technical committee, said the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA)'s decision to let 950 relatives and carers of heroin addicts be trained in using naloxone "represents a step forward in tackling the high number of fatal opiate overdoses".

He adds: "We consider that provisions should be extended to cover others who may be in contact with drug users through their work."

Iversen, a professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, has hailed naloxone as "a miracle drug in terms of opiate overdoses" that could save 500 heroin users from dying every year. It might have saved singer Michael Jackson's life if it had been administered after his overdose, he believes.

However, doctors and drugs experts are divided about proposals to make naloxone more readily available.

Some fear that it could encourage users to indulge in even riskier drug-taking. Others have warned that up to 3% of those receiving naloxone suffer potentially life-threatening side-effects ‑ and even that it can be used as a weapon in fights between users.

But interest in naloxone as an antidote and potential lifesaver is growing, especially following the most recent annual statistics for deaths from all types of drugs that showed they rose by 11% to 2,928 in 2008 – the highest figure since 2001.

The Medical Research Council hopes to give the drug to 58,000 heroin users who have recently been released from prison as a way of examining its advantages and disadvantages, and a £1m pilot project research project involving 5,800 ex-inmates is due to start soon.

Prof John Strang, one of those behind the MRC's move, said: "The downsides of naloxone are very little. It's not pleasant, because it induces almost instantaneous cold turkey, but it saves lives."

The NTA's director of delivery, Rosanna O'Connor, said: "Naloxone forms part of the government's harm reduction and overdose prevention strategy. The government recognises the life-saving potential of naloxone and supports its use in a number of settings."Hero