The growing abuse of commonly prescribed anxiety and insomnia drugs, known as benzodiazepines, has prompted the peak body for drug regulation in Australia to consider more tightly restricting their prescription.
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On Thursday the Therapeutic Drugs Administration (TDA) will decide whether to reschedule the drugs, which include Valium and Xanax. It is expected that the decision will not be made public until Monday.
President of the Australian Medical Association, Steve Hambleton, said there had been a significant increase in benzodiazepine prescription, despite the drugs not being recommended as a first-line treatment for anxiety.
"There are websites to teach people how to get the drugs through their doctors, because there is a high level of suspicion among doctors when patients ask for the drugs," Dr Hambleton said.
"Use of alprazolam, known as Xanax, is rising rapidly and is of particular concern, and it is increasingly implicated in heroin-related deaths."
As well as further restricting the prescription of drugs such as Xanax, Dr Hambleton said there should also be "real-time" monitoring of prescriptions so patients could not go to different doctors for prescriptions or get them filled several times in quick succession.
A study from Melbourne's Monash University, published in the Medical Journal of Australia earlier this year, described how Xanax supply increased by 1426 per cent in the decade to 2010.
The study authors referred to a report that found heroin users were 28 times more likely to overdose if they had used a benzodiazepine in the previous 12 hours.
While many abusers of benzodiazepines obtained the drugs illicitly, prescriptions for benzodiazepines subsidised by the government accounted for up to five per cent of all prescriptions written by general practitioners.
The drugs are only recommended for short-term use – between two and four weeks – because they are fast-acting and highly addictive. Xanax, considered a safe drug when prescribed and used properly, has been associated with erratic behaviour, mood swings and impaired judgment, particularly when it is abused.
A principal research fellow with the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, Louisa Degenhardt, said Xanax was a particular cause for concern because it was a powerful drug with a high risk of dependency and – when combined with other depressant drugs like opioids – with overdose.
"It is also a very desirable drug on the illicit market," Professor Degenhardt, from the University of NSW, said.
While there were people who legitimately needed the drugs and benefited from them, Professor Degenhardt said tougher regulation may encourage doctors to think of other effective treatments.
"It is also important to remember benzodiazepines are not first-line treatments for anxiety and there are well-evaluated, non pharmaceutical treatments that can be prescribed first."
