Posted by Chairman_MAO on March 11, 2006, at 17:43:47
In reply to Re: Many people fear MAOI's...., posted by bassman on March 10, 2006, at 17:55:49
No honest and competent clinician or psychopharmacologist ever believed that the long half-life is what caused dependence. It is a brute fact that drugs which raise the seizure threshold and sedate induce dependence. Even before the mechanism of diazepam was elucidated in the 1980s, people knew that benzodiazepines were quite similar to barbiturates and alcohol. Moreover, it stands to reason--and seems borne out in people's experiences with venlafaxine/paroxetine vs. fluoxetine, nordiazepam vs. alprazolam, phenobarbital vs. pentobarbital, etc., that drugs with short t1/2 have more intense withdrawal syndromes due to rapid elimination.
Very few drugs are ever synthesized with a purpose in mind. Drugs are discovered mostly through brute for synthesis of myraid compounds. That triazolobenzodiazepines happen to bind more tightly to the receptor (and thus induce MORE vicious dependence) is "merely" the way it is, no more, no less. It could have been different for all we know, but it isn't.
Excellent primer on the benzodiazepines:
http://www.etfrc.com/benzos1.htm
poster:Chairman_MAO
thread:618332
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060310/msgs/618995.html