Concerns over prescription-drug dependency are not new. The Committee on Safety of Medicines — a government body set up after the thalidomide scandal of the 1950s — warned back in 1980 that patients given benzodiazepines for anxiety and sleep problems were at risk of becoming dependent on them if they stayed on them for longer than four weeks.The opioid crisis in the U.K. has the same antecedents as America's:
It urged GPs to limit the drugs' use, scrap repeat prescriptions and help patients come off the pills gradually — tapering to smaller doses — to avoid acute withdrawal symptoms.
Dr Davies says: 'Yet, here we are, 40 years later and roughly half of those NHS patients prescribed benzodiazepines have been on them for more than two years.
'It's the easiest thing in the world to prescribe a drug but it can be very difficult to get some people off them.'
Meanwhile, Britain's opioid crisis is starting to mirror that seen in the U.S., where overdoses have claimed more than 500,000 lives since the late-1990s.
Research published a year ago in the journal PLoS Medicine, by experts at Manchester University, found codeine use in the UK had risen five-fold in the previous decade. Prescriptions for opioids tramadol and oxycodone rose too. Latest data show deaths from codeine overdose rose to 212 in England in 2020 (from 156 in 2017); in the past decade codeine poisoning deaths have doubled.
Experts fear increased demand for over-the-counter codeine formulations may be largely to blame, sparking calls for a ban on their direct sale to the public.
Worryingly, the Manchester study showed one in seven first-time users of the painkillers became long-term users, even though it is known to lead to addiction.
Last year, the Medicines and Regulatory Healthcare products Agency — which vets drug safety — introduced stronger labelling for opioid medicines, warning patients they could get addicted and experience unpleasant withdrawal symptoms if they stopped taking it suddenly. The body also says drugs such as tramadol and oxycodone should be limited beyond cancer patients.
Comment: Is this incompetence at higher levels or are the people choosing not to get the vaccine?