"Theres another type of prescription drugs besides opioid painkillers thats involved in thousands of drug overdose deaths in the US every year. The drugs are benzodiazepines which are widely known by their brand names Xanax and Valium and commonly prescribed to help treat anxiety. These drugs were involved in nearly  overdose deaths in  according to federal data https But theres a catch Such overdoses seem to be very closely tied to the opioid epidemic http with the majority of benzodiazepine overdose deaths involving both benzodiazepines and opioids. A new study http published in BMJ looked at just how much the concurrent use of these two drugs increases the risk of overdose versus the risk of only using opioids. Drawing on a huge sample of nearly  patients who were continuously enrolled in private health insurance plans from  and  researchers compared those who were prescribed just opioids versus those who were prescribed both and what their additional risk of an emergency room visit or inpatient admission was in the period they were prescribed both. The study found that among all opioid users concurrent use of benzodiazepines more than doubled the risk of an emergency room or inpatient visit for a drug overdose. The study also found that eliminating concurrent benzodiazepine and opioid use could reduce the risk for an opioid overdoserelated emergency room or inpatient visit by  percent. If that reduced risk applies to overdose deaths as well eliminating concurrent opioid and benzodiazepine use could have prevented up to  opioid painkillerrelated overdose deaths in . Keith Humphreys a drug policy expert at Stanford University and one of the authors of the study said this reveals an underappreciated policy lever for reducing drug overdoses making sure patients prescribed to opioids arent also prescribed to benzodiazepines and vice versa. Even if we didnt change opioid prescribing at all the data here suggest that we could cut overdoses dramatically just by getting prescribers to not put people on a benzodiazepine at the same time Humphreys said. Yet the study suggests the opposite has happened. From  to  coprescriptions to opioids and benzodiazepines among the studied pool of patients increased from  percent to  percent  a nearly  percent jump. For some patients eliminating these coprescriptions could involve some tough tradeoffs. If someone genuinely suffers from pain and anxiety doctors and patients will need to work out which condition is more important to treat and which one can be treated with alternatives  to avoid a potentially deadly overdose. Hopefully while keeping in mind that theres no httpannals.orgarticle.aspxarticleID good http scientific http evidence http that opioids can treat chronic pain so opioids arent the right treatment for chronic pain in the first place. There are some caveats to the study. For one emergency room visits and inpatient admissions for opioid overdoses likely arent a perfect onetoone proxy for overdoses that didnt involve a trip to a doctor. The study also only looked at legally prescribed opioid painkillers and benzodiazepines missing the effects of concurrent use of illegally obtained pills or drugs. And since the research relied on patients who were continuously insured throughout the study period its possible the findings dont exactly apply to people with spottier coverage. Although sensitivity analyses in the study for people who had lapses in insurance produced similar results.  Finally since the study looked at correlation not causation its possible that it missed some other factor driving up overdose deaths among concurrent benzodiazepine and opioid users  perhaps for whatever reason these users may be more likely to misuse their drugs. Still its well established https that benzodiazepine and opioids compound each others overdose risk. So its not really controversial to conclude that simultaneously using opioids and benzodiazepines dramatically increases the risk of drug overdose  or conversely that stopping the concurrent use of these two drugs could reduce the risk of overdose. Given that the opioid epidemic has quickly turned into the deadliest drug crisis in US history http its important  and potentially lifesaving  for doctors and policymakers to at least consider the studys findings. For more on the opioid epidemic read Voxs indepth explainer http the abridged explainer http or the maps and charts explainer http"