Healthcare professionals in pharmacy will debate the Irish relationship with anti-anxiety medication.
“Kids are different today, I hear ev’ry mother say Mother needs something today to calm her down And though she’s not really ill, there’s a little yellow pill She goes running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day.”
– Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
The song Mother’s Little Helper, released by the Rolling Stones in 1966, referred to the sudden popularity of the anti-anxiety medication Valium among stressed-out, unfulfilled housewives who could obtain it easily from their GPs.
When the benzodiazepine drug marketed under the name Valium was released by Roche Pharmaceuticals in 1963, it quickly became a blockbuster drug that was popular in Hollywood and gained notoriety for its seemingly miraculous effects. It was hailed as a much safer alternative to barbiturates, which had a high potential to cause addiction and were very dangerous in overdose.
Valium became the most widely prescribed medicine in the world, and made the company one of the most profitable companies in the world, but it soon became apparent that people were having difficulties stopping their medication and the withdrawal effects were similar to the symptoms of anxiety that had led them to take the drug in the first place.
Several reports published in recent years have highlighted concerns that “benzos” are still being too widely prescribed in Ireland and too often used. A report from the benzodiazepine committee of the Department of Health and Children in 2002 suggested that one in 10 holders of medical cards was taking them. In 2010-2011, the National Advisory Committee on Drugs and Alcohol carried out a drug prevalence survey, which reported that 14 per cent of adults between the ages of 15 and 64 had taken sedating tranquillisers at some point in their lives, and 7 per cent in the past year. This had increased from the previous survey in 2007; most of the meds were on prescription and women were more likely than men to be prescribed them.
Dolores Keating, an honorary senior clinical lecturer at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland ’s (RCSI’s) school of pharmacy, and head of pharmacy services at St John of God Hospital, says the current guidelines advise to use benzos only for anxiety that is severe and distressing and only for short periods of two to four weeks.
Source: Michelle McDonagh, Irish Times, 17/02/15
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