JEDDAH, 2 August 2006 — According to a specialist at Jeddah’s International Medical Center, hectic workdays and depression lead many youths between the ages of 17 and 30 to become dependant on antidepressant drugs and specifically the sedative benzodiazepine.
These drugs help anxiety and insomnia. However, long-term usage may cause loss of memory and chemical dependence.
Dr. Nazly Daula, a psychiatrist, said problems related to the long-term abuse of such drugs have been known “for ages”, but the number of dependence cases is on the rise worldwide.
A recent report in UK newspaper The Guardian cited a 1999 letter from Health Undersecretary David Blunkett in which he called the issue of the widespread prescription and abuse of benzodiazepines in Britain “a national scandal.”
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health published an article recently discussing the increasing number of people in the Kingdom that have become addicted to prescription drugs. The author of the article, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khudair, warns against long-term use of antidepressants, such as the olanzapine, which is available without prescription and had been linked to weight gain and increased chances of contracting diabetes.
“How is this drug then sold here when the Kingdom is one of the countries with the largest number of diabetes sufferers?” said Al-Khudair.
The side effects of prescription drug abuse, says Daula, vary depending on the level of addiction and length of time that the drugs have been abused.
Daula points out that some doctors will carelessly prescribe these medications to their patients and will not follow through to determine when they no longer need them.
For their part, patients that become addicted to the medication will continue to use the drugs as they need them to function normally. These drugs also impair people’s ability to drive, thus putting themselves and others at increased risk of accidents. Men, she adds, are more likely to abuse these drugs than women.
Addicts of the prescription drugs will sometimes resort to buying leftover pills from friends that no longer use them. Daula warns patients not to fall into the trap of dependence by obtaining these drugs if they don’t really need them, or no longer require them, for their prescribed use.
The doctor offered some advice to people who are addicted to these drugs, saying it’s better to gradually wean the body off the drug by reducing the dosages. This allows the body to reduce its physical dependence over time thus mitigating the side effects of quitting.
For extreme chemical dependence, the doctor recommends seeking professional treatment, such as the services offered by Al-Amal Rehabilitation Hospital.
“Some patients do not seek treatment out of fear that other people, especially the authorities, will find out they are addicts,” said Daula. “But they should know that these cases are treated with utmost concern for the patient’s privacy.”
For more about benzodiazepine dependence, check out the English-language UK-based website: www.benzo.org.uk.
