Aww, don't quit out now. We're almost at my favorite part. To willingly engage another in argument, only to recourse to a craven surrender at the mildest indication of your defeat is nothing but cowardice; it's a pusillanimous cop-out and shows you haven't got the gumption to either a.) convincingly argue your contentions, or b.) the decency to concede that you're wrong and to change your opinions accordingly.
And I never said you ever said benzodiazepines are necessarily more effective, so you are probably arguing over nothing.
Therein lies the paramount mistake: you continually confuse and conflate safety with therapeutic efficacy. The two concepts are not connected. A substantial therapeutic window can coexist with a negligible therapeutic potential,and vice versa.
For the most part, yes. When it comes to how effective barbiturates are relative to benzodiazepines as drugs for ameliorating or assuaging anxiety, insomnia, a plethora of parasomnias, delirium tremens, seizures, hypertension, panic attacks, depression, social phobias, agoraphobia, intrusive thoughts, OCPD, catatonia, psychotomimesis or psychosis—there simply is no comparison.
Again, a barbiturate is to a benzodiazepine for anxiety or insomnia as caffeine is to (d)methamphetamine or methylone for psychostimulation.
I agree. And that's why pharmaceuticals are produced with specific formulations and dosages. The difference between a toxin and a drug is the dosage. Since the LD50 is lower for barbiturates compared to benzodiazepines, all that means is less of the barbiturates is used.
Barbiturates, it seems we're all too eager to forget, were prescribed for decades by clinicians and medical professionals all over the world, and they only obsolesced out of our culture's cyclical drug hysterica and fervent pharmacophobia.
Every decade has its worst drug ever. There's always some drug epidemic to popularise and proliferate through media for a burgeoning in revenue and viewership.
What's your point? Benzodiazepines are almost as demonized as barbiturates, and there exist countless articles (several entire pages of Wikipedia, alone) arguing anything from benzodiazepines are the most dangerous prescription drugs in existence (q.v., 1.)
Benzodiazepines: Dangerous Drugs; 2.)
Is This the World's Deadliest Pill?).
My point is that it can be equally demonstrated that clonazepam and other benzodiazepines are of no therapeutic value, insofar as we are to erroneously equate ineffective therapy with deleterious side-effect profiles.
By your reasoning, clonazepam is ineffective as a therapy because, like barbiturates, it comes with severe and numerous intrinsic risks and adverse effects.
No, not even figuratively is this well-taken or veridical. Anxiety is fear in the absense of something tangible or palpable with which to actually fear.
For example, fear arising from being immobilised on the tracks of an oncoming locomotive is not anxiety, but fear. Anxiety is like the disquietingly amorphous and unknown but imminent cousin of fear. Anxiety is the response to a potential threat or calamity, whereas fear is a response to a real threat or calamity.
If my positive anecdotes about barbiturates are inconsiderable, so too are your positive anecdotes about benzodiazepines
With a sufficiently responsible individual, yes it can and has. I personally have used barbiturates since I was 17 years old and have done so on a regular basis for almost five years hence—I'm 21, now.
One is not supposed to do any of these activities on any sedative or hypnotic drug.
The dosage is what matters, here. Too much clonazepam can make daily activities much more laborious than too little secobarbital.
Moreover, why would anybody want to do anything whilst high on secobarbital, except have sex and lounge around?
Nobody takes barbiturates just for nice, relaxing drive across the countryside or up the block to the corner store.
You really quite are. But you'll never admit to it here. And so, I've nothing further to say.
