Posted by med_empowered on December 7, 2005, at 23:36:55
In reply to Re: Lunesta is A Controlled Substance I'm confused » Phillipa, posted by Jakeman on December 7, 2005, at 20:54:05
I think since the 60s, when a lot of "safe" sleeping pills proved problematic (examples: Placidyl, Doriden, Noludar, and of course...QUAALUDES), the FDA has been a little more careful in scheduling psychiatric drugs. With the newer sleep aids, I think their reputation and their "new-ness" kind of tends to override their scheduling status in actual prescribing. Ex: most docs won't hesitate to hand out some Ambien or Lunesta, but they will think twice (or three, four times) before writing for a benzo..and when they do, its increasingly for Klonopin or Ativan, rather than Xanax or Valium. Yet...all these drugs are in schedule IV, which means they're officially about equal in terms of dependence-producing potential (and since schedule IV status means minimal dependence risk, it shouldn't be *that* big a deal). But...some of these same docs will write for adderall, dexedrine, ritalin, etc. without hesitation; addictive potential aside, I think maybe ADHD is seen as a less "crazy" condition than anxiety, so maybe they anticipate fewer problems (or consider ADHD patients more "normal" ?_
poster:med_empowered
thread:586582
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051203/msgs/586758.html