Long-Term Use of Benzodiazepines, Stimulants and Lithium is Not Evidence-Based

OBJECTIVE: To study whether three widely differing drug classes, benzodiazepines and similar agents, stimulants and lithium, showed similar patterns of long-term usage. METHOD: I constructed usage curves over a ten-year period, from 2007 to 2017, based on data from Statistics Denmark. RESULTS: In 2007, a total of 478,097 patients deemed a prescription for a benzodiazepine or similar agent, 13,225 for lithium and 8,800 for a stimulant, corresponding to 8.8%, 0.24% and 0.16%, respectively, of the Danish population of 5,427,459 people. Only 6,2102, 5,339 and 983 of these were first-time users (13.0%, 40.4% and 11.2%, respectively). The percentage of current users who redeemed a prescription for the same or a similar drug in each of the following years fell most quickly for benzodiazepines and similar agents and most slowly for lithium, and after ten years, it was 18%, 40% and 29%, respectively. For first-time users, the drop in usage was much quicker. The percentage of first-time users who redeemed a prescription for the same or a similar drug in each of the following years fell to 12%, 59% and 49%, respectively, already after only two years. CONCLUSIONS: We should focus on helping patients withdraw slowly and safely from the drugs they are on instead of telling them that they need to stay on them.