For a great many people (myself included) benzodiazepines are lifesavers. I would really hate to see these kinds of articles prompt yet another moral panic which has doctors reluctant to prescribe drugs to people who need them.
Benzos probably shouldn't be used for sleep, and certainly shouldn't be the first thing that's tried.
This article doesn't seem to be saying "stop prescribing benzos", but just "stop being so careless when prescribing benzos".
This article mentions the Z drugs and suggests that they're less addictive, but it doesn't mention the rise in referals to Dublin drug and alcohol services for people struggling with zopiclone; or the fact that zopiclone is one of the meds most frequently obtained using stolen prescription pads in Paris. The z drugs probably have similar addiction potential as diazepam.
It wasn't just people in long term pain, though. It was people who'd just had operations. It was people in hospice, for Pete's sake. What's the point of worrying about addiction in someone who's gonna be dead in a month?
The patient will develop a tolerance to the meds; requiring higher and higher doses; and eventually they'll be taking dangerously high levels of those meds and their pain will not be controlled, and so now they have an opiate addiction and they still have the pain.
We know that opiates are widely misused by clinicians and we know that this misuse does not help treat the pain and causes considerable other problems.
A few years ago when things got bad for me, my practical options were heroin, trust a doctor, or suicide. I might add buprenorphine/suboxone to the list now, but we'll see.
I chose heroin initially as a guaranteed short term solution, it did literally save my life at the time.
I was lucky to have the skills and resources to carefully purify and prepare it in isotonic sterile injection vials, ready for quick use. Moderate dosages worked perfectly, it instantly ended 4AM "episodes", I could function and think clearly again, and avoid missing work while I figured out what to do long term.
More importantly, I'm lucky to either have massive self control or lack the propensity for addiction. I tapered off on my own and saw a doctor, worked with them trying a variety of medications until finally given a choice of several benzos, which worked reasonably well overall.
I do recognize side effects with them, but without them I know I would be doing much much worse right now, at least I have a chance to keep going.
Responsible doctors will strongly warn about the addictive nature. Irresponsible doctors will simply write a prescription, knowing that either their patient is an addict or they're creating an addict.
Ambien is the latest version of this. Ambien is "perfectly safe", even if they warn about Xanax. Xanax used to be "perfectly safe" as an alternative to the obviously addictive Valium. Sigh.