Sleeping Pills, Insomnia and Medical Practice

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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 . . .