Phil Spector said in a civil trial deposition released Friday that he made the rounds of upscale restaurants but didn’t drink heavily or use illegal drugs on the night actress Lana Clarkson was shot to death in his mansion.

The documents were ordered released by the judge in Spector’s upcoming murder trial at the request of prosecutors. Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler noted that he had read the material and found “no smoking gun” in the testimony.

Spector, who said he has been diagnosed as manic depressive, said for the past eight years he had been taking anti-depressant medications prescribed for him by psychiatrists. Among them, he said, were Prozac, Neurontin and Clonopin. (more…)

Allison Bills was crying so hard she could barely talk. The 53-year-old, disabled Lake Park woman lives off a monthly Social Security check and suffers tw1o neurological disorders. She was on Medicaid until December, when the federal government switched her and 430,000 other poor Floridians to the new Medicare Part D program for prescription-drug coverage.

By Wednesday, she’d run out of Clonazepam and Neurontin, perhaps the most crucial, her pain doctor’s office said, of the nearly two dozen drugs she takes daily. “If I didn’t take these medications,” said Ms. Bills, who suffers seizures and chronic pain from fibromyalgia and reflex sympathetic dystrophy, “I couldn’t get out of bed. I’d die.” (more…)

Almost all medications carry some risk of side effects, but health care providers say that with proper communication and follow-up, off-label use can be everything from a chronic pain buster to a smoking-cessation aid.

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