Chris Benoit's doctor has been officially charged:
http://www.twnpnews.com/messages2/17714.shtml
Quote:
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JUL 2 -- ATLANTA--Dr. Phillippe C. Astin, III, 52, of Carrollton, Georgia, has been indicted by a federal grand jury for illegal distribution of prescription drugs, including Percocet, Adderall, Lorcet, and Xanax, outside the usual scope of medical practice and not for legitimate medical purposes. Astin was charged today in a seven-count criminal indictment and made his initial appearance this afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda T. Walker. Astin was initially charged in a federal criminal complaint issued last Friday, after DEA agents and officers from the Fayette and Carroll County Sheriff's Offices executed search warrants at his medical office last week...
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Looks like he was giving out drugs like they were candy. Only to two patients though, but the investigation is ongoing and more charges could be forthcoming.
I think that not only does the WWE have to do something to help protect the well being of their workers in a better way, but doctors need to be a little more responsible with their practices. Unfortunately doctors like these will always be around. I read an old article with Sean Waltman (X-Pac, 123 Kid)today and in it he talked about drug testing in the WWE before they instituted the current Health and Well Being Policy. The WWE used an outside company to do the testing, but even those companies can be corrupt as on one occasion Waltman succesfully slipped the drug tester $200 to take the test for him. Based on Waltman's comments I'd speculate that the drug tester probably walked away with thousands of dollars that night. It is a long, but interesting read:
http://www.pwtorch.com/artman/publis...le_20761.shtml
After doing some pondering and reading many articles on Benoit's incident you can see that the toll of losing so many close friends an co-workers played a huge effect on his mental state. You really have to wonder that if many years ago the WWE and all the other wrestling organizations somehow found a way to provide better working conditions and thusly a better lifestyle for their workers, that they could've prevented all these drug related deaths. If so, would Benoit still have snapped or would he have been under a better frame of mind and handled his problems differently?
As much as I used to love the wrestling business and defend it the way pro wreslters defend it by saying "Its just the way things are done in wrestling", the business really needs to change. How much more money do the promotors have to make before they change the way they do business to help save the lives of their workers, and now also the lives of their workers families?