P-05-784 Prescription drug dependence and withdrawal - recognition and support
This
petition was submitted by Stevie Lewis, having collected 213 signatures online.
Petition text:
We call on the National Assembly for Wales to urge
the Welsh Government to take action to appropriately recognise and effectively
support individuals affected and harmed by prescribed drug dependence and
withdrawal.
This petition has been set up to raise awareness of
the plight of individuals in Wales who are affected by dependence on and
withdrawal from prescribed antidepressants and benzodiazepines – and
specifically to ask the Welsh Government to support the BMA's UK-wide call for
action to provide timely and appropriate support for individuals affected.
The term "prescription drug dependence"
refers specifically to the situation where, having taken their antidepressant
or benzodiazepine medication exactly as prescribed by their doctor, patients
find they are unable to stop because of the debilitating withdrawal effects. It
is important to note here that addiction and dependence are related but
different issues. Use of the term addiction implies pleasure seeking behaviour.
Reporting of prescription drug dependence in the media continues to allude to
"misuse" and "addiction" as if the patient is responsible
in some way for their own harm. This is far from the truth. There is no
pleasure whatsoever in finding that if you try to reduce or stop your
antidepressant, you suffer a wide range of physical and emotional disturbances,
that for some people can be life limiting and, tragically, even life ending.
Patients need formal acknowledgement, support and guidance to help them through
their withdrawal journey and this currently does not exist.
Additional information:
The British Medical Association has recently
highlighted the issue of prescribed drug dependence. In May 2017, they wrote:
"Prescribing of psychoactive drugs is a major clinical activity and a key
therapeutic tool for influencing the health of patients. But often their use
can lead to a patient becoming dependent or suffering withdrawal symptoms. In
the absence of robust data, we do not know the true scale and extent of the
problem across the UK. However, the evidence and insight presented to us by
many charity and support groups shows that it is substantial. It shows us that
the 'lived experience' of patients using these medications is too often
associated with devastating health and social harms. This represents a
significant public health issue, one that is central to doctors' clinical role,
and one that the medical profession has a clear responsibility to help
address." Because the side effects, tolerance effects and withdrawal
effects of these medicines are not medically recognised for what they are, when
patients develop these related effects/symptoms they are often prescribed other
medicines and then polypharmacy complicates the problems further.
Affected patients are finding themselves with
vague diagnoses eg: 'medically unexplained symptoms' or 'functional/somatic
system disorders'. These are essentially psychiatric diagnoses attributing
various debilitating and disabling physical symptoms to patients' own anxiety,
beliefs, etc. This has the effect of discounting, disempowering and
demoralising these patients still further. If it cannot be acknowledged that
patients can have sustained functional nervous system dysfunction and damage as
a consequence of taking medicines 'as prescribed' (sometimes over many years),
systemic medical learning and improvement is stifled and patients continue to
be further harmed. Meanwhile the initial prescribing risks remain severely
underestimated and misleading prescribing guidelines and 'best practice' advice
is unchanged.
Status
A report was published by the
Committee and later debated in Plenary.
Full
details of the consideration of this petitions by the committee and related
documents can be seen on the Meetings tab above.
It
was first considered by the Petitions Committee on 05/12/2017.
Assembly Constituency and Region
- Monmouth
- South Wales East
Further information
Reason considered: Senedd Business;
Type: For information
First published: 28/11/2017
Documents