Posted by christophrejmc on February 16, 2002, at 16:18:49
In reply to Re: Elements of addiction » jimmygold70, posted by Mr. Scott on February 16, 2002, at 14:37:06
Can anyone explain to me why people abuse benzodiazepines? The only reason I've ever heard was to "space out." If that's the main reason, why wouldn't there be more cases of neuroleptic abuse?
Is it just that benzos work too well? Many drug abusers are simply self-medicating and anxiety is one of most common psychiatric disorders.
Some antidepressants have suffered the same fate -- amineptine and nomifensine were removed from the U.S. market for what a lot of people think to be because of abuse potential (i.e. they worked too well, too fast). (This may be one of the reasons why no-one is interested in developing any more substantially dopaminergic ADs.) Also, as a result of several reports of Parnate abuse, some parts of the world (at least Italy and perhaps Germany) combine tranylcypromine with a phenothiazine neuroleptic.
Few opioid analgesics are available without the addition of another drug (usually one that is dangerous in large amounts (perhaps in any amount)) to thwart abuse. If this trend continues, will we see the release of Xanaxcet?I'll save my rant about the anti-benzo groups for a later time, but I think we should start an anti-benzo-prohibition ("pro-benzo" might give people the wrong idea) group -- I don't deny that people have had real problems with benzos (some even truly addicted) but there's no reason to throw the baby...
-Christophre
poster:christophrejmc
thread:94336
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020215/msgs/94439.html