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brings). This recent newspaper article from the Calgary Herald illustrates one more concern about medication therapy and anxiety pills that are being used by so many people:

Anxiety pills addictive, have few benefits
By Sharon Kirkey
Calgary Herald - February 7, 2005

Benzodiazepines, potentially addictive tranquillizers that include Xanax and Ativan, are being prescribed to tens of thousands of patients in amounts 10 times higher than recommended, despite the risk of harm and "scant evidence" of any meaningful benefit, new Canadian research shows.

"Benzos" are prescribed widely to treat anxiety and insomnia, as well as panic attacks. More than 14 million prescriptions were filled by Canadian retail drug stores last year, says prescription-drug tracking firm IMS Health Canada.

The sedatives, which depress brain function, are intended for short-term use only - two to three weeks - and it's recommended most people take no more than 100 anxiety pills per year. But University of British

Columbia researchers found 4.2 per cent of the population of B.C. - about 170,000 people - received more than 100 pills in 2002. About 10,000 people were prescribed more than 1,000 pills.

"The overall benefits and harms from this drug exposure in B.C. is unknown," the researchers report in the most recent Therapeutics Letter, a bi-monthly publication produced by the Therapeutics Initiative, a world-renowned drug research group based at the university.

Nearly 10 per cent of the province's population (400,000 people) received at least one prescription for the sedatives in 2002, putting the drug class near the top in terms of pills dispensed. Overall, 84 million benzos were prescribed in B.C. in 2002 - more than the number of acid-suppressing pills, cholesterol-lowering pills, prescription painkillers such as Celebrex or diuretics.

The two groups most vulnerable to side effects from benzodiazepines - women and the elderly - are the biggest users. But the tranquillizers are also being prescribed to children, even toddlers under four, even though they have not been licensed for use in kids.

The researchers doubt the findings hold true for B.C. only. If anything, the province's population tends to take fewer prescription drugs than other Canadians.

Hailed as "wonder drugs" and "mother's little helpers" when they first hit the market more than 40 years ago, benzodiazepines quickly replaced barbiturates as the top-prescribed anxiety pills because they were far less toxic in overdose.

But "these drugs

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