Treatment of Benzodiazepine Dependence

To the Editor: The review article about benzodiazepine dependence and its treatment by Soyka (March 23 issue) 1 is consequential and timely. While contemporary news reports and articles in medical journals have rightly focused on the devastating opioid crisis, benzodiazepine abuse and dependence have become emerging matters. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal an increasing trend of written prescriptions for benzodiazepines and deaths from overdose. 2 Because of this trend, we used data from the National Poison Data System to compare four benzodiazepines with respect to numbers of complications (i.e., intubations) and deaths. We searched for data on . . .