Sleeping pills common in drug busts

Police on the streets of Sydney say 80 per cent of their drug busts turn up prescription sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication — drugs not tracked by the provincial monitoring program.

Const. Steve Timmons, with Cape Breton Regional Police, said officers often find prescription bottles with the labels scratched off.

"So it's quite obvious it has come from a legitimate source that has then been sold," he told CBC News.

Sleeping pills and tranquilizers are classified as benzodiazepines, and include the drug names Ativan, Valium and Xanax.

When mixed with alcohol, it's a "recipe for disaster," said Timmons.

In 2009, the Cape Breton Community Partnership on Drug Abuse urged the province to monitor benzodiazepine prescriptions  for abuse and misuse, just as it does for narcotics.

The group said 80 per cent of the people who go into detoxification programs use these drugs.

Double the cost

But the province is putting off a decision.

"Looking at the number of prescriptions that are written in this province, this would roughly double the cost of the prescription monitoring program," said Dr. Cameron Little, a spokesman for the program.

He said a withdrawal plan would be needed to wean users off the drugs.

"We also know that people who are on benzodiazepines for a considerable amount of time … there can be significant illness and even death in going cold turkey. And we do know that once you start monitoring any drug there will be some physicians who will simply stop prescribing," he said.

The province says a drug information system to track all prescriptions should be in place in about three years.