Benzo Awareness Network Petition

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If you wish to sign the BAN Petition you can follow this link to submit your signature.

http://www.petitiononline.com/benzo/petition.html

 

Here is what the petition states.

 

We the individuals listed below, have electronically signed this petition for the purpose of making it known that taking benzodiazepines, as prescribed by our doctors, resulted for us in severe unwarranted addiction, chronic misdiagnosed illness, profound emotional anguish and an overall inability to function normally for lengthy periods of time during attempted withdrawal phases.

 

We all know that taking prescription drugs include taking some risks and that with each some percentage of patients are likely to experience adverse results. We feel strongly however, that the risks involved with the taking of benzodiazepine drugs is much greater than the medical community and our governments realize. Much greater certainly than we were ever told. They are extremely addictive. The degree of suffering caused by benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome is enormous compared to that of other prescription and even non-prescription drug withdrawals. We also feel that the percentage of patients adversely effected by the benzodiazepine drugs is much greater than our doctors, our governments and maybe even the manufacturers of these drugs such as Roche, Wyeth and Upjohn realize.

 

We hope that this petition will help prove to our doctors, our governments and also to the drug companies responsible for manufacturing them that benzodiazepine addiction is not a small problem that effects only a handful of people, as they would have us believe. This is a global problem of epidemic proportions. It needs to be addressed immediately. But first, it needs to be acknowledged.

 

Unlike voluntary addiction to street drugs such as cocaine and heroine there is at this time no treatment protocol and no antidote for this unique iatrogenic,(Dr. induced)addiction. The withdrawal symptoms are severe and debilitating. The time frame for recovery is longer in duration than that required for any of the above mentioned illegal drugs or for any other drugs we know of.

 

The profits generated from these benzodiazepines not only for Roche and other manufacturers but for the Dr.'s who prescribe them and for the pharmacies who sell them staggers the imagination. It is certainly to their mutual advantage to deny the truth about the extent of benzodiazepine addiction and related illness and to suggest that it is the patients, not the drugs that are the problem. This petition intends to prove them wrong.

 

Our lives have been unexpectedly, undeservingly and negatively impacted by a benzodiazepine drug. We are united in spirit by the desire for the truth to be known and for others to be spared the suffering we have experienced first hand.