What they don’t breach to the public at all is that if they find drugs as the cause of death (and that seems likely) they cannot see a) if he took them in a short period of time to kill himself, since most psychotropics don’t fire up in minutes..but some time release for hours or b) if he took the drugs to sleep/get away from life for awhile then he woke up and took some more then woke up and …

So, all an autopsy can do is give the cause of death not his reason for it.
In short then, many drug deaths are cause by people whacked out on drugs wanting to be more whacked out. But suicide ? Calling it that is mind rape, since only he would know.

“Gee, I sure hope they finished filming the new Batman”

It’s far more likely (if he even intended to die) that he would be taking something to sleep, perhaps something mild like lorazepam which is an anti-anxiety but which gives some 4 + hours of sleep. Problem is, people acclimate to it quickly so later on, it gives only 3 then 2 hours of sleep, so..if this or another anti-anxiety or sleep aid was a drug he took, he would take more hoping to get the same bang for the buck..

But, if all this makes sense, it shouldn’t since I don’t know his meds nor his diagnosis, if any, so to theorize after the fact…in the mass media of all places…is incredibly tacky and surely jumping the gun. Yet, I know there will be those who, politely, say we should wait for the results before we publish anything. I am not one of those people. I do not believe we have any right to know the last days of this man. The war in Palestine is news. This isn’t. This is private.

As you say, I mentioned what impressed me about him was his ability to work a project for the sake of the project - a real actor. It’s what made him solid and moreso solid beyond his years. Like you said he never was in the news for stupid stuff - unlike Brad Renfro, who had unlimited potential but let his demons parade themselves to the media.

When I was growing up I was taught that Morrison, Hendrix, Joplin and Lenny Bruce all committed suicide. That’s when I looked up the word “didactic”. Not directing this towards Dave - to assume (by the media and local authorities) that Ledger’s death is suicide is irresponsible even in the most didactic context. To make a local analogy, assumptions like that are something the media and “authorities” have learned from Mark Loesch case.