[alkonaut]

> what are the alternatives for people with chronic pain or chronic anxiety?

If you look around the world, what is the solution there? The US is unique in the prescription of these drugs, but also unique in its reluctance to look around and say "what's everyone else doing that's working"?

I think here the answer is that it's fundamentally a different view on chronic pain (Acute pain is a different story- you don't prescribe a ton of opiates to someone who needs to keep it for emergencies).

[peteretep]

> The US is unique in the prescription of these drugs

The US is in no way unique for prescribing anxiolytics, benzos or otherwise

[alkonaut]

The discussion is usually about opioids where the US is an outlier. For benzos I can't seem to find a good comparison, but this statistic stands out:

"In 2008, approximately 5.2% of US adults aged 18 to 80 years used benzodiazepines." [1]

Here "used" means filled at least one prescription during the year. This to me looks like an extremely high number, but I can't find a good number for comparable countries. I'd be very surpised if the rest of the OECD had a figure of even 1%

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269766767_Benzodiaz...