It is no wonder people here report a high demand for sleeping pills and anti-depressants.
Too many people may be damaging their health by self-medicating with sleeping pills, according to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
He says that doctors should probably only use sleeping pills for acute, short-term problems.
The lifelong teetotaller and anti-smoker was addicted to sleeping pills.
Sleeping pills such as Ambien from Sanofi-Aventis and Lunesta from Sepracor have been some of most heavily advertised drugs.
Sleeping pills such as Ambien from Sanofi-Aventis and Lunesta from Sepracor (nasdaq: SEPR - news - people ) have been some of most heavily advertised drugs.
Many doctors are still reluctant to prescribe sleeping pills, which are considered potentially habit-forming and, for many users, cause next-day hangovers.
In the past three months the FDA has slapped cautionary labels on sleeping pills and yanked Novartis (nyse: NVS - news - people )' constipation drug Zelnorm after that company's analysis showed heart problems.
Ambien, sold by French drug giant Sanofi-Synthelabo (nyse: SNY - news - people ), is currently the only one of these new sleeping pills approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
"Whenever studies are funded by non-pharmacological groups, we find every time that CBT is more effective than sleeping pills, " says Gregg Jacobs of the University of Massachusetts.
Bad news for the makers of sleeping pills: A new report in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association says that a six-week course of psychological therapy may be more effective for insomnia than taking drugs.
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