Depressants (non-opioid)
Benzodiazepines, Z-drugs, barbiturates, GHB/GBL, and muscle relaxants — substances that suppress CNS activity.
Latest reporting
The Starting Dose Your Doctor Writes for Anxiety Is Already in the Danger Zone
A Finnish national cohort of 48,124 new benzodiazepine users found overdose risk more than triples at medium-high doses — including doses inside the standard starting range for common anxiety prescriptions.
The DEA Just Banned Five Benzos Nobody Had Heard Of — And That's the Whole Problem
The DEA just placed the first benzodiazepines ever into Schedule I and emergency-scheduled a drug called 'designer Xanax' — but the scheduling system that let Valium addict a generation in the 1970s still can't outrun the next lab. Here's the through-line, the GHB death spike nobody's talking about, and what actually works.
He Took the Same Pill for 20 Years. Coming Off It Nearly Killed Him Faster Than Staying On Ever Would.
A pharmacist's 20 years on prescribed lorazepam, and what the research says about why benzodiazepine dependence is so often mismanaged by the very system built to treat it.
Through eight lenses
Science
GABA-A positive allosteric modulators (benzos, Z-drugs), GHB at GHB receptor + GABA-B.
Biology
Sedation, anterograde amnesia, paradoxical disinhibition. Withdrawal: kindling effect, protracted symptoms, seizure risk.
The Starting Dose Your Doctor Writes for Anxiety Is Already in the Danger Zone
Aug 12He Took the Same Pill for 20 Years. Coming Off It Nearly Killed Him Faster Than Staying On Ever Would.
Jul 23The First Benzodiazepine Prescription Doesn't Look Like a Drug Problem. That's Exactly How It Becomes One.
Jul 3
Psychology
Chronic benzo dependence via therapeutic use; iatrogenic pathway; cognitive effects.
He Took the Same Pill for 20 Years. Coming Off It Nearly Killed Him Faster Than Staying On Ever Would.
Jul 23The First Benzodiazepine Prescription Doesn't Look Like a Drug Problem. That's Exactly How It Becomes One.
Jul 3Seven Days Is the Line Between a Benzodiazepine Prescription and a Benzodiazepine Habit
Jul 3
Policy
Schedule IV (benzos, Z-drugs), II (barbiturates), I (GHB), but designer benzos (etizolam, flubromazolam) circulate as novel psychoactives.
The DEA Just Banned Five Benzos Nobody Had Heard Of — And That's the Whole Problem
Aug 2The Sedative Crackdown Worked in the Waiting Room. It Never Reached the Nursing Home — or the Street.
Jul 13Designer Xanax Goes Schedule I: The DEA Made History. Whether It Made Anyone Safer Is a Different Question.
Jun 23
Trends
Benzo Rx rising; designer benzo detection in overdose deaths; fentanyl-benzo co-use lethal combination.
A GHB Overdose Cluster Killed One Person in Wellington Over a Single Weekend. The Trend Line Behind It Has Been Climbing for a Decade.
Jul 11Prescribed and Trapped: Medicare's Benzodiazepine Numbers Reveal a Crisis Built by Doctors
Jun 3Non-Opioid Depressants: Benzos, Z-Drugs, and the Ones You Didn't Know About
May 8
Treatment
Slow taper (Ashton Manual), CBT for anxiety, flumazenil only for overdose.
The Starting Dose Your Doctor Writes for Anxiety Is Already in the Danger Zone
Aug 12He Took the Same Pill for 20 Years. Coming Off It Nearly Killed Him Faster Than Staying On Ever Would.
Jul 23The First Benzodiazepine Prescription Doesn't Look Like a Drug Problem. That's Exactly How It Becomes One.
Jul 3
Harm Reduction
NEVER mix with opioids/alcohol, test-strip availability for designer benzos, naloxone doesn't reverse benzo respiratory depression.
The DEA Just Banned Five Benzos Nobody Had Heard Of — And That's the Whole Problem
Aug 2The Sedative Crackdown Worked in the Waiting Room. It Never Reached the Nursing Home — or the Street.
Jul 13A GHB Overdose Cluster Killed One Person in Wellington Over a Single Weekend. The Trend Line Behind It Has Been Climbing for a Decade.
Jul 11