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It seems like benzos, while sometimes quite powerful, can have really nasty side effects that some doctors irresponsibly don't disclose, including the rapid tolerance, rebound properties, and withdrawal in general. It also seems that, like opiates, it can vary a lot from person to person. I've been fortunate, and the few times I've had occasion to try taking benzos for a non-hospital interval, they didn't do anything for me - positive, negative, or otherwise, without any sort of visible withdrawal effects when we stopped. Conversely, there are people I know who have reported nasty side effects and dependency issues rather rapidly (in my own family, even). I really think the way to move forward and minimize this see-sawing of public opinion on necessary evil versus unnecessary tool will be gaining better insight into people's personal response profiles to these things before
and after giving them the drugs, so you can try to notice "huh, that's a lot higher concentration of those metabolites than I expect, I guess they process it fast" or "well that opioid sure is lighting up the reward parts of the brain, guess they're at decent risk for addiction." (Unfortunately, I'd speculate we're at least 20y out from anything like that being ubiquitous/useful, so ...) |