Action on Britain's epidemic of pill addiction
Peer to use House of Lords speech to reveal relative's addiction to prescription drug
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Independent Minds
WILDLIFE / GMBH / ALAMY
As early as 30 years ago, the addictive properties of tranquillisers such as Valium were known, but critics maintain the Government is still not doing enough to help
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The Department of Health has launched a review of the million-plus patients addicted to prescribed drugs in the UK in a tacit admission that attempts to control the problem over the last two decades have failed.
An estimated 1.5 million people are addicted to prescription and over-the-counter drugs including benzodiazepine tranquillisers, sleeping pills such as zoplicone - implicated in the death of Hollywood star Heath Ledger - and painkillers containing codeine.
The review, which began in July, was disclosed in a Westminster hall debate last June but has not been formally announced. It followed a report by the House of Commons all-party group on drugs misuse which called for better training for doctors in the risks of over-prescribing, greater awareness of the scale of addiction and more centres for treatment.
On Tuesday, Lord Montagu, the Earl of Sandwich, is to seek details of the Government review in the House of Lords and will say how the problem of addiction has impacted his own family.
He said: “Since January a member of my family has been suffering from acute withdrawal from this prescribed drug [a benzodiazepine]: his dreadful symptoms mean he is confined to his room, unable to work and attend to his family. He receives no government or medical support because there is none.”
Lord Montagu said the government should take “urgent action” to help victims of benzodiazepine withdrawal and develop a network of clinics to care for them. “I would like to see direct support for people who are victims like the member of my family,” he said.
The addictive properties of benzodiazepines and similar tranquillisers, for which 11 million prescriptions were written last year, were first recognised three decades ago when the best known among them - Valium - was widely prescribed for stress. It became known as “mother’s little helper”, after the Rolling Stones 1960s hit, because GPs handed out large quantities of the pills to women trapped with small children in high rise blocks.
In 1980, an item on Esther Rantzen’s BBC TV programme “That’s Life” detailing the difficulty some people had withrawing from Valium, provoked the biggest response in the programme’s history, exposing a problem on a huge scale that had gone unnoticed by doctors. GPs had until then assumed, when patients complained of symptoms of withdrawal, that this was the anxiety returning - and prescribed more drugs. “That’s life” was later celebrated as the TV programme that changed the course of medicine.
In 1988, doctors were warned by the Committee on Safety of Medicines that prescriptions for the benzodiazepines should be limited to a maximum of four weeks . The warning was re-iterated by Sir Liam Donaldson, the Government’s Chief Medical Officer in 2004.
Campaigners say these measures have proved inadequate. The growth of on-line pharmacies, and the ease with which “legal” drugs can be obtained and used compared with the risks involved in illegal drug use, are contributing to the problem, they say.
Pam Armstrong, of the Council for Information on Tranquillisers and Antidepressants (CITA) in Liverpool said: “There are still lots and lots of patients being put on these drugs and kept on them for a long time. I have some sympathy with GPs - they get a lot of pressure from patients who want these drugs. But the problem has been ignored. These are patients who don’t go out mugging old ladies and creating trouble - and their needs are not being met.”
CITA has run clinics for addicted patients in GP surgeries across five primary care trusts in the north west for the last 15 years, helping wean patients off their drugs. This month the first private in-patient unit, the Sefton Suite, is due to open in Aintree, Liverpool. “We need services to be established on a national basis,” Ms Armstrong said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health said prescribing of benzodiazepines had “declined substantially” in the last ten eyars.
“Misuse of any prescription medication can be extremely serious. Our main focus has been on prevention and we are currently looking at how we can further strengthen such measures. This includes reviewing prescribing guidelines and getting the full picture on over-the-counter and prescription drug dependence. We are also working closely with GPs to ensure they are fully aware of any potential side-effects from prescription drugs.”
Helpline - Council for Information on Tranquillisers and Antidepressants: 0151 932 0102 www.benzo.org.uk
Case study: 'My life has been shattered'
Matthew (not his real name), was prescribed Efexor, an antidepressant, and Clonazepam, a benzodiazepine, to help him sleep following the failure of a business venture in 2001.
He was living abroad but returned to Britain where the prescription was continued. “For seven years I was fine. I didn’t really think about the pills, I took them as vitamins. It was something I did at the end of the day.”
Earlier this year increasing fatigue prompted him to try and withdraw from them. His doctor advised a “cold turkey” approach involving a few days in hospital, after which he would be drug free.
“I went in as a happy confident person and in two days I was a train wreck. I felt I had woken up in a horror film, I couldn’t walk or think and I had lost my memory. It was indescribable torture.”
Nine months on, he is still trying to put his life back together. Married with two children, he has been unable to return to work.
“I am still terrified of going outside, I can’t think straight or concentrate and I have very bad depression. Every single stimulus seems scary and heightened. It is absolutely extraordinary a prescription drug can do this to you. My life has been shattered.”
“There is nowhere for me to go for support except to other sufferers on the internet and one or two people who have set up support groups round the country.”
“I have seen several doctors since and they cannot believe my doctor kept me on these drugs for seven years. I have lodged a formal complaint about him.”
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Comments
That comment sounded like it was a justification for not making drugs illegal (an unwelcome but not unforeseen effect of Nutt's public statements).
Although I disagree with all your comments and opinions on the current topic of drugs, I do honestly hope that a close family member of yours does not fall foul of drug use, even though they fully researched and decided quite sanely to go ahead. Because you will find that the physical, mental and financial destruction wrought by the harmful effects of drugs on family members is something you would not wish on anyone.
You would also undergo having your painful experience dismissed as being anecdotal and therefore worthless in the clever scientific debate. You may find yourself described as being bigoted, Labour, religious or discriminatory.
But perhaps as a corollary to your espousal of personal informed choice, is the hard fact that if you are too weak to withstand the harmful effects, then too bad?
Nutt's provocative comments in the public arena, prompted by personal ego, have been taken up almost universally as to mean that cannabis, Ecstasy and LSD should be as freely available as alcohol and tobacco. People are queuing up in these comments and in the media to say that these drugs are NOT as dangerous as the current legislation states.
I do not agree with your suggestion that everyone should research for themselves then make informed decisions to take drugs - and I include alcohol and tobacco in that. No alcohol, tobacco or illegal drug user does that. All users have been encouraged by another user. And my point, which you must appreciate, is that it is not just the user's own life which is affected.
I've show you the evidence already (http://www.drugequality.org/reading.ht
Because if you have such evidence, is your moral duty to provide it to us, the public. And if you don't have it but still insist in being right, I advise you, and without intent to offend at all, to visit a psychologist.
And as for psychologists, I heartily recommend that they are avoided for the benefit of mental health.
I also do not recommend following your advice to the public, which is to assess the possible risks to self and then indulge freely as inclined.
now they say one million.so no one can say something significant hasn't
already been done to deal with this addiction
The GP is THE worse person to talk to about anything personal: he never has time, and will always (WHY OH WHY???) pretend he has some kind of answer to your ills (whatever they are) - when most of the time he simply will NOT.
We must end General Practicioners and create those super-surgeries. Skilled people will then take the place of the postcode lottery magicians, those over-paid people hypnotised by the company paperweight, and cauterised by the breadth and extent of their own power.
The whole NHS must be completely re-written to stand up to the modern age.
People can openly critique the Governments policies but these are often the result of unrealistic ideals and personal judgments that don't take into account the bigger picture because of their rosy coloured glasses that blind them.
As Orwell said "Ignorance is Strength" and this is the vantage point that the majority of well wishes come from.
I then asked my GP if there was any other form of non-drug therapy, as I had heard about Computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (cCBT). I was referred to my local PCT in no time as there wasn't a waiting list to use a NICE Recommended ccbt programme called Beating the Blues, I can't tell you how much this programme has helped me combat my depression and anxiety illness. I no longer take the "happy pills" and I would recommend that people suffering from depression ask their GP about this programme! What can I say, except it saved my life and will save the lives of hundred's of thousands, not just in the UK but across the world. I am glad to say that I know longer have suicidal throughts and have fully recovered thanks to Beating the Blues (available free on the NHS)
Why can't the Government put pen to paper and Sign a National Contract for Beating the Blues? It is being rolled out in Northern Ireland, let's hope the Government here i.e. Gordon Brown, and the Health Secretary actually sign it and save the Government a decent amount of money.
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetai
NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH AND CLINICAL EXCELLENCE GUIDANCE ON COMPUTERISED COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY09.02.2009
Lamb, Norman
That this House is concerned that, almost three years since the publication of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence's (NICE's) guidance on computerised cognitive behavioural therapy (cCBT) for the treatment of depression, and numerous statements from the Secretary of State for Health, NICE-approved cCBT has yet to be made available in all primary care trusts (PCTs) in sufficient quantities to meet the known need; notes that the current recession is likely to increase the prevalence of mild and moderate depression in the general population; is aware that, based on NICE estimates, full implementation of this guidance will result in a cost benefit to the NHS of £126 million per annum; is further concerned that many people are suffering from a postcode lottery for treatment for depression and anxiety; and calls on the Department of Health to take measures to ensure that NICE-approved cCBT is available in all PCTs for GPs to prescribe and that strategic health authorities are directed to ensure that PCTs comply with their obligations to provide this treatment.
It too has changed my life. No more of those poisonous pills. I urge anyone
suffering with depression to demand a course of beating the blues from
their GP.
I feel better than I have in my entire life. It has given me the tools to
cope with whatever life throws at me. I too was on anti-depressants for
many years. It just masked the depression by drugging me and numbing
my feelings.. Beating the Blues is risk free (no side-affects) answer to this
terrible, crippling illness.
I came off Librium (Chlordiazepoxide) on 14 Jan 2004, after being on it since 1964 (over 40 years).
I have suffered terribly and still battle the fear the w/d has provoked in me. I still suffer from withdrawal symptoms, and have received absolutely no help from the NHS - who well know what they have done to me, and others.
Its about time doctors and Psychiatrists (especially the latter) began to realise that emotional problems can't be medicated - especially since these medications damage brain and body.
There are lots of people out there who need help - direct help - NOW!
In America, where I live, there is absolutely nowhere to turn. I see this subject being tackled more in the UK., and I hope the actions of the medical community there will have some effect on the physicians in the USA. I doubt it, though. Pharmaceutical companies are too powerful, and care only about the money, as do the psyche doctors here. What a pathetic situation!