Sleeping Pills, Insomnia and Medical Practice

Abstract

IN VIEW of the availability of newer, apparently safer drugs (benzodiazepines), the Institute of Medicine was asked by federal agencies to review the status of short-acting to medium-acting barbiturates in medical practice. The drugs originally of concern to policy-makers were commonly prescribed sleeping pills (hypnotics) containing secobarbital, pentobarbital and amobarbital. From the viewpoint of public-health policy, little or no concern was expressed about phenobarbital or butabarbital, which are prescribed mostly to provide daytime sedation or to control epileptic seizures; unlike the hypnotics, these barbiturates are only infrequently used in suicide and rarely in drug abuse.The Institute of Medicine decided . . .