Doctors and researchers across the country, including the experts at Delaware County’s Crozer-Keystone Health System, are sounding the alarm on a class of drugs prescribed too often, writes Aubrey Whelan for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Prescriptions for benzodiazepines, such as Xanax and Ativan, have skyrocketed. It is especially concerning that this is happening in the midst of an opioid crisis. When benzodiazepines are mixed with opioids, they can become deadly.

According to Rick Pescatore, director of clinical research in Crozer-Keystone’s department of emergency medicine, overdose patients often require multiple doses of Narcan, the overdose-reversing drug, to revive them.

“There’s this supposition that it’s extremely powerful opioids,” he said, “when more often, it’s co-ingestion with benzos.”

Experts emphasize that benzodiazepines must be used properly.

“Benzos are effective medications when you use them in combination with small procedures,” said Jaakko Lappalainen, chief of addiction psychiatry at Crozer-Keystone, “or if you need to treat someone who is acutely agitated, and you can use them in the short term for anxiety.”

Pescatore said that, while he understands that patients prescribed benzodiazepines or opioids are usually trying to escape larger underlying problems, doctors need to take extra care when prescribing.

Read more about anti-anxiety drugs in the Philadelphia Inquirer by clicking here.