Amid rising concern over long-term use and side effects, France has launched a national campaign to raise awareness about the risks associated with commonly prescribed anti-anxiety and sleep medications such as Xanax, Lexomil, and Temesta.<\/p>\n
France’s National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM)<\/a> has launched an awareness campaign to highlight the hidden dangers of benzodiazepines<\/a> \u2013 a class of drugs that includes common medications such as Xanax, Lexomil, and Temesta, which are frequently prescribed for anxiety and sleep disorders.<\/p>\n While these drugs are widely used across France, many patients are unaware of the serious risks linked to prolonged use, including dependence, cognitive impairment and increased risk of accidents.<\/p>\n With more than 9 million people in France taking these medications in 2023 \u2013 including related drugs such as zopiclone and zolpidem (marketed as Imovane and Stilnox) \u2013 the ANSM is urging caution.<\/p>\n Around three-quarters of prescriptions come from GPs, and while the drugs can be helpful, the agency warns that they should be used sparingly and only for short periods.<\/p>\n In their social media campaign, the ANSM<\/a> says: “Anxiety medications are for a short time. Insomnia medications are for a few nights!”<\/p>\n Side effects<\/p>\n On average, 34 pills per person are consumed annually in France, compared to just five to seven in the United Kingdom or Germany.<\/p>\n (With newswires)<\/p>\n Read more on RFI English<\/a><\/p>\n Read also:
France extends medical cannabis trial to help patients find alternatives<\/a>
French health agency warns against risks caused by cold tablets<\/a>
Police seize over a million ecstasy pills in south of France<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid rising concern over long-term use and side effects, France has launched a national campaign to raise awareness…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[5327,5329,5334,2000,299,36,5331,5333,5328,5332,5330],"class_list":{"0":"post-8332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-ansm","9":"tag-awareness-campaign","10":"tag-cognitive-impairment","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-france","14":"tag-medications","15":"tag-national-agency-for-the-safety-of-medicines-and-health-products","16":"tag-national-campaign","17":"tag-side-effects","18":"tag-south-of-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114314438517147155","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}