Shane Dawson: the problem is Xanax, and the problem is YOU.

so you know I have played anxiety and
it's getting worse literally every time I get on a plane to a point where crying hyperventilating think I'm gonna die I want to jump out the window really really bad you do my mom does what well so I asked the doctor and he prescribed me this for plans but I'm really scared benzodiazepines are a class of medications typically used to treat anxiety and insomnia they include things like xanax valium klonopin and one of the fascinating things about Ben's days means in the past let's say 20 years is that there's been a steady increase in prescribing in fact since about 1999 benzodiazepine prescriptions have increased about 67 percent there's also been a sevenfold increase in benzodiazepine related mortality since 1999 and so what I've written about is that I really think that benzodiazepines are like the hidden epidemic there's been all this national attention awareness around opioids and how they can cause death and all kinds of other adverse health outcomes including addiction but we read very little about benzodiazepines and the fact that they are highly addictive that they can cause death that they cause all kinds of other adverse health outcomes now the first drug that was tested in this new era was Salmons alprazolam for panic disorder okay and here was the study they conducted that it was for panic attacks it was xanax versus a placebo group and after four weeks xanax was doing better okay but it wasn't a four-week study the way that physicians typically prescribe Dawn's Daisy beans to patients is contrary to how they are recommended to be prescribed by the FDA almost all been Stasia pians are recommended to be used only short-term now how we define short-term is sort of in the eyes of the beholder but generally when we're thinking short-term we're thinking you know on the order of days two weeks not months two years at eight weeks the alprazolam patients were doing no better than placebo patients okay and then from eight weeks to 14 weeks westward and you went through the drug because we knew benzodiazepines are addictive so they had to have a withdrawal phase at the end of 14 weeks that xanax patients were doing worse than they were at the beginning and much much worse than the placebo patients okay the trial told of harm done it told that people who are gonna get addicted when they came off they'd have so all sorts of withdrawal symptoms and some people unable to get off and yet we commonly see in the medical profession physicians who prescribe bends days opinions to patients has a sort of one-way ticket they start the prescription the patient starts taking it the patient endorses that they feel better and 20 years later they're still on that bends dazed pain and often at a higher dose what did they report what did American psychiatry report they didn't report the eight-week results they focused on the four-week results because that was a story that told of an effective new treatment for panic disorder they basically glided oh you know didn't talk about the eight-week results in the abstracts and completely hid the 14 week results so what's the evidence base these are effective for panic disorder but there is there is a body of literature now that shows that these drugs do leave lasting for many many people leave lasting cognitive deficits no I'm thinking of a study where people would you the study I was going to say talk about whether people were using multiple drugs over the years benzos and some people were using opiates and some people using stimulants and the loss of brain function was the greatest and the people using the benzos especially compared to people using the opiates for someone who's not taking benzos I would go to great lengths to convince them never to do it it's not a good idea they can affect the performance in school on the job devastating in terms of driving people can be as impaired with benzos driving as they would be with alcohol so all of the side effects that you associate without young people can also occur with benzos and the combination of the two is added people like to disrespect my truth but the fact is that you know my name is I don't know