It’s not as famous as OxyContin, but the prescription drug Klonopin can be just as dangerous.

 

Around since 1975, Klonopin (clonazepam) was first prescribed to help epileptics control their seizures. Eventually, though, the medication was given patients who were subject to panic attacks and to addicts trying to get off drugs or alcohol, because of its ability to prevent seizures and control the symptoms of acute withdrawal. The latter decision led Klonopin and other benzodiazepines to become the second most abused class of prescriptions, after opioid painkillers like Oxy.

 

But what Klonopin can do to a patient is pretty horrific. It’s effects have been described as “beginning with an energized sense of euphoria but ending up with horrifying sense of anxiety and paralysis, akin to sticking your tongue into an electric outlet, or suddenly feeling that your brain is on fire,” according to Christopher Byron in his upcoming book Mind Drugs, Inc.: How Big Pharma and Modern Psychiatry Have Corrupted Washington and Destroyed Mental Health in America.

 

Among the celebrities who have taken benzodiazepines with unfortunate results are:

·       Actress-model Margaux Hemingway, who died in 1996 from a benzo-barbiturate mix;

·       Actress-model Anna Nicole Smith, who died in 2007 after an overdose of Klonopin and other drugs;

·       Author David Foster Wallace, who had Klonopin in his body when he hanged himself in 2008;

·       Singer Stevie Nicks, who has said, “The only thing I’d change [in my life] is walking into the office of that psychiatrist who prescribed me Klonopin. That ruined my life for eight years.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

The World's Most Dangerous Drug (by Christopher Byron, The Fix)