FDA urged to require black-box warnings about combining opioids, benzos

The deadly drug duo in millions of seniors' medicine cabinets

It’s practically the same drug cocktail used to kill prisoners on death row — and it may be sitting in your medicine cabinet right now.

It’s been about two years since Ohio started using a mixture of benzodiazepines sedatives and opioid painkillers for executions. They were confident it would kill quickly — and they were right.

The only problem? This same combo of drugs is now being handed out to seniors like candy — including maybe to you or someone you love.

Thousands may have already been killed by the dangerous way benzos and opioids can interact inside your body. And it’s never been more important to check your medicine cabinet now to make sure you don’t become the next victim.

A prescription for troubleI’ve been warning you for years that anti-anxiety benzos like Xanax and painkilling opioids like OxyContin have a terrible reputation.

Like the kind that would make Al Capone look like a choir boy.

Countless seniors have had their hearts stopped or died suddenly after taking benzos or opioids — so you’d think no doctor in his right mind would ever prescribe them together.

But it’s not just happening — it’s practically become an epidemic, and lots of seniors who are dealing with both anxiety and chronic pain are right in harm’s way.

Last Monday, public health officials and researchers from across the country signed a petition asking the FDA to affix black-box warnings to meds in both categories about how taking them at the same time can turn deadly in the blink of an eye.

“It’s critical that doctors are aware of the reduced margin of safety” when opioids and benzos are prescribed together, said Dr. Leana Wen, the Baltimore City Health Commissioner.

But the danger of mixing these drugs should have been pretty obvious — that is if anyone had bothered to connect the dots. (I’m sure even the bumbling Inspector Clouseau could have handled the job.)

For example:

Two years ago, an analysis of CDC data on over 16,000 opioid-related fatalities in 2010 found that more than 30 percent also involved benzos.
That same year, the international journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence reported that between 2005 and 2009 the most common cause of overdose deaths from multiple drugs was the combining of these two types of meds.
And last summer, a study published online by the British Medical Journal found that nearly half of all veterans who had died from drug overdoses while on opioids were also being given benzos. And the ones receiving the higher doses of benzos were in the most danger.

The combo is especially deadly as benzo drugs can make the effects of opioids even stronger, suppressing the central nervous system until the person stops breathing.

But now, it looks like health professionals are finally trying to figure out how the deadly avalanche can be stopped.

For starters, “If you are a patient, ask why you need both medications,” urges Dr. Wen.

Of course the easiest way to solve that is to take as few drugs as possible. But if you are taking any pain or anti-anxiety meds, you need to be aware of exactly what you’ve been prescribed.

Opioids come in pills, liquid, skin patches and suppositories. Some of the more common ones are: Vicodin (a toxic double-whammy that also includes acetaminophen), Nocor, OxyContin, Percocet and Demerol.

And thanks to the American Psychiatric Association loosening the guidelines for prescribing anxiety drugs decades ago, benzos are now being handed out like crazy. Some of the best sellers include: Xanax, Valium (also prescribed for “restless leg syndrome”), Halcion (sometimes prescribed for jet lag!) and Ativan.

Of course, if you’re prescribed a generic, the names will be different, so when in doubt, ask your pharmacist.

But what all this prescribing adds up to is untold numbers of people going to sleep with both opioids and benzos in their system.

And the real tragedy is that it’s taken all this time for the “experts” to finally realize that a lot of them won’t wake up as a result.

Sources:
“Health officials urge FDA to add black box warning on opioids, benzos” CJ Arlotta, February 24, 2016, Forbes, forbes.com

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