Getting addicted to prescription drugs is all too easy Education Images/UIG via Getty

Addiction to prescribed medicines could be as big a problem in the UK as addiction to illegal drugs like heroin. So say a group of UK doctors and politicians, who have called for urgent action to help people who get hooked on painkillers, antidepressants and anti-anxiety medicines like Valium.

“We are in the midst of a great public health disaster, which is killing hundreds of people a year and ruining the lives of millions,” Harry Shapiro, head of addiction charity DrugWise, said at a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence last week.

Doctors at the meeting said addiction clinics focus on helping people abusing illegal drugs or alcohol – so people stuck on prescription meds have nowhere to turn.


People often get hooked on opioid painkillers because they are given them after an injury or operation, said Jane Quinlan at the University of Oxford. “The patients are taking the drugs just as they have been told to.”

The number of prescriptions for strong opioids has soared in the UK in recent years, mainly because doctors are increasingly warned not to leave patients suffering. A recent study suggests prescriptions for patients without cancer rose about seven-fold between 2000 and 2010.

Best painkillers

Although opioids are the best analgesics for people with cancer or in short-term severe pain, in the long term the drugs become ineffective and can sensitise pain nerves, meaning that over time non-painful stimuli become painful. As well as disrupting sleep, prolonged use also puts people at risk of infections and accidental overdoses. But they also make you feel good and if people try to cut down they end up with flu-like withdrawal symptoms (see “How I got addicted to painkillers”).

Another problem is a group of anti-anxiety medicines called benzodiazepines, such as Valium, which can also lead to addiction and withdrawal symptoms that include panic attacks and insomnia. These are supposed to be used for no more than four weeks at a time, to help people cope with a crisis. But a recent analysis of figures from a UK drug addiction charity called the Bridge Project suggests there are around a quarter of a million people in the UK taking benzodiazepines long-term. Most of those surveyed by the charity have been on the medicines for many years.

Antidepressants are supposed to be non-addictive, but critics say they can also trigger withdrawal symptoms and many people get stuck on them for years.

This week the British Medical Association called for a dedicated NHS helpline and website where people hooked on prescription drugs can get advice. Farrukh Alam, an addiction specialist at Central and Northwest London Mental Health Trust said: “When patients suffering opioid dependence are referred to me they don’t like mixing with other drug users and tend to drop out of treatment.”

Quinlan said the UK may be following in the footsteps of the opioid addiction epidemic in the US. But Cathy Stannard at Southmead Hospital in Bristol says in the US many people are using prescription painkillers to get high while in the UK most people are using them for medical reasons.