Is there really a drug that can make you appear to be dead, or in a coma?

Like anesthesia? What do you mean “appear to be dead”—brain dead, no heartbeat, no movement?

there was a CSI recently on this so it must be true ;o)

Not dead as in no breathing.. just impossible to wake up.

Any general anesthetic seems like it would fit the bill, then.

Is it the drug Michael Jackson took to sleep?

I’m thinking the movie with Harrison Ford and Michele Pfeiffer also dealt with this issue, What Lies Beneath.

People get put into medically induced comas for many different reasons. As long as the medication is in the persons system, they are pretty much in a coma. They won’t wake up until the medication is allowed to wear off. Most often, they are given another medication to reverse the affects of the medication used to induce the coma. So, short answer, yes, there are medications that can be used to put someone in a coma.

Take enough of any drug, and you’ll appear to be dead.

Because you’ll actually be dead.

OK, there have been alliterations to such a drug made in Romeo and Juliet, and also in the lore of voodoo and zombies, and in the movie The Serpent and the Rainbow. Does this help out any of you people who don’t know what @twothecat is talking about?

Personally, I think this is an interesting subject.

If one took a large amount of barbiturates (such as Tuinol, which I don’t think is sold anymore), one’s heart rate and breathing would depress almost to the point of death. But there is a fine line there…if one stopped breathing altogether, the heart would stop and the brain would die, so the dose would have to be precise.

Here is an interesting story about one man who was said to be buried after appearing physically dead on a mixture of tetrodotoxin and bufotoxin.

Vecuronium is what they use in the TV dramas, I believe, to cause paralysis.

@ladymia: (I believe you mean allusions and not alliterations)

Induced comas do not eliminate breathing, which is usually a sign of life.

Sucinylcholine is one I’ve read about in books.