Addiction to benzodiazepines--how common?
A. Piper Jr
Benzodiazepines have compiled an impressive record of safety and efficacy.
Despite this record, however, physicians and laypersons frequently worry
about the drugs' addictive potential. Overemphasizing these concerns may
discourage prescription of benzodiazepines, thereby impeding treatment of
anxiety disorders. This review first defines the term addiction. It then
examines how frequently conditions meeting that definition occur in
patients without histories of substance abuse, who are prescribed
benzodiazepines under medical supervision. In such patients,
benzodiazepines almost never induce behavior that satisfies any reasonable
definition of addiction.
