One Simple Solution to Reduce America’s Lethal Overdose Epidemic

‘The United States is in the grips of the worst drug overdose crisis ever, with prescription opioids and illicit opiates like heroin killing tens of thousands of people each year, but many of those people aren’t dying from opioids alone. Another class of prescription drugs is too often involved.
Those drugs are the benzodiazepines—with brand names like Valium and Xanax—and are prescribed by the millions to treat anxiety, They can be deadly on their own, with federal data showing nearly 9,000 fatal benzo ODs in 2015. But here’s the kicker: Nearly half of all fatal benzo ODs involve both them and opioids.
And a new study published in the British Medical Journal provides further evidence of the risks of doing benzos and opioids together. That study drew on a sample of more than 300,000 patients continuously enrolled in private health insurance plans between 2001 and 2013, and researchers looked at emergency room visits for drug overdoses among those prescribed only opioids versus those prescribed both opioids and benzos.’
Read more: One Simple Solution to Reduce America’s Lethal Overdose Epidemic