From the USA TODAY Editorial:
While Xanax and similar drugs are less notorious than narcotic painkillers such as OxyContin and Vicodin, they’re addictive, widely prescribed and, combined with alcohol, can be just as dangerous. They cause 373,000 overdoses a year, almost as many as the narcotic painkillers. Collectively, the two classes of drugs kill about 70 people a day, according to estimates by the Prescription Monitoring Program Center of Excellence at Brandeis University.
That’s a stunning number: more than double the death toll from all illegal drugs combined, and almost as many as die in auto accidents. But the danger goes largely unnoticed because unlike heroin and cocaine, the prescription medicines are miracle drugs. For people with extreme, chronic pain — particularly from terminal illnesses that make addiction meaningless — the narcotics are close to indispensable. For people with significant anxiety problems, Xanax and similar medications — used properly — bring relief.
But the overdoses and deaths scream that the drugs are often abused — either because doctors are inattentive or because addicted patients use them excessively or improperly, mixing them with alcohol or other drugs…
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