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Show UNDERSTANDING DRUG ABUSE a health column from the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Project Sleep The Public Health Service recently began a major program pro-gram to educate physicians and patient about sleep disorder dis-order and their treatment, according to an announcement announce-ment by Surgeon Cicncrnl Juliu Richmond The new program, "Project Sleep: National Program on Inomnia and Sleep Disorders," Dis-orders," respond to growing public and professional concern con-cern about the treatment of insomnia and other sleep disorder dis-order and the use and misuse mis-use of sleep-inducing medication, medica-tion, A wide cross section of professional pro-fessional organization and consumer group will collaborate collab-orate in planning and implementing imple-menting an education program. pro-gram. It goflls arc to improve the diagnosi ond treatment of insomnia and sleep disorders and to promote better prc-tcribing prc-tcribing practices, to improve public knowledge about the significance of insomnia and ilcep disorder and their treatment, treat-ment, and to identify area requiring re-quiring further icienltflc re-nearch. Approximately 24 million American used sleeping pills in 1978 I ach year about 10 million Americans see physician. physi-cian. for relief from sleep disorders dis-orders and more than half of these receive prescription for sleeping pill In 1978. U S physicians wrote 1.1 million such prescriptions More than 2 million Americans Ameri-cans take sleeping pills nightly over a period of several months, even though there arc serious question about the usefulness of long-term consecutive con-secutive use of these medications medi-cations A recent report by the National Na-tional Academy of Sciences slates that widespread and prolonged use of sedative and hvpnotic drugs ns sleeping pills is "difficult to justify ' "If taken in overdose -cither intentionally or accidentally-sleeping pills can he fatal. 'I his i pnrticulrly true if they arc mined with other drugs or alcohol," said Richmond. Rich-mond. "Recent scientific studies also point to other adverse ell eels Some of these drugs accumulate in the body after several nights' use "I hi can impair the individual' alertness alert-ness and coordination, possibly possi-bly interfering with safe driving driv-ing or operating machinery," he added, MLW'j Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration will take the lead in the education program and will work clo.ely with the I-ood and Drug Administration. |