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    Benzo Land: How Drug Companies Enslave Us
    Benzo Land: How Drug Companies Enslave Us
    Benzo Land: How Drug Companies Enslave Us
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    Benzo Land: How Drug Companies Enslave Us

    By Richard Crasta

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    About this ebook

    Benzodiazepines, a class of tranquilizers and sleeping pills (such as Valium, Xanax, and Ambien--almost all chemicals ending with the suffix "zepam") are often mindlessly and irresponsibly prescribed by doctors.  These doctors have been brainwashed about the merits of these drugs by unethical drug companies.

    The result: the drugs, being highly addictive, end up enslaving millions, in body and mind.  Many, especially in Third World countries, have no idea what they are going in for.

    This book, the result of experience and reading, tells a story the author feels compelled to share. It is NOT a how-to book, but the story of a unique journey.

    Richard Crasta has published ten other books, including the bestselling novel "The Revised Kama Sutra," which has been published in ten different countries.

    One reader's response to an earlier version of this book: "Tells me I am not alone, and is certain to tell many, many, many more that they too are not alone. Your article will define for them their secrets. It will put words to what they do not understand about what is happening to them: the forgetfulness, etc... You have found the words. Those words are a light in the darkness that is Benzo Land when one builds there. Thank you."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInvisible Man Press
    Release dateNov 29, 2013
    ISBN9781497766976
    Benzo Land: How Drug Companies Enslave Us
    Author

    Richard Crasta

    Richard Crasta is the India-born, long-time New York-resident author of "The Revised Kama Sutra: A Novel" and 12 other books, with at least 12 more conceived or in progress. "The Revised Kama Sutra," a novel about a young man growing up and making sense of the world and of sex, was described by Kurt Vonnegut as "very funny," and has been published in ten countries and in seven languages.Richard's books include fiction, nonfiction, essays, autobiography, humor, and satire with a political edge: anti-censorship, non-pc, pro-laughter, pro-food, pro-beer, and against fanaticism of any kind. His books have been described as "going where no Indian writer has gone before," and attempt to present an unedited, uncensored voice (James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, and Philip Roth are among the novelists who have inspired him.).Richard was born and grew up in India, joined the Indian Administrative Service, then moved to America to become a writer, and has traveled widely. Though technically still a New York resident, he spends most of his time in Asia working on his books in progress and part-time as a freelance book editor.

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      Book preview

      Benzo Land - Richard Crasta

      Benzo Land

      How Drug Companies Enslave Us

      Richard Crasta

      Copyright © 2020 by Richard Crasta

      Cover Art & Design: Venantius J. Pinto

      All Rights Are Reserved.

      No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Limit of Liability / Disclaimer of Warranty

      The Publisher and Author have used their best efforts in preparing this book. The Publisher and Author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. There are no warranties which extend beyond the descriptions contained in this paragraph.

      Paperback ISBN-13: 9781724449580

      About Richard Crasta

      Richard Crasta, the author of The Revised Kama Sutra: A Novel, has been published in ten countries and in seven languages by more than twelve different publishers, including Fourth Estate, Penguin, and HarperCollins. A detailed list of books and review quotes are provided at the end of this book.

      Praise for The Revised Kama Sutra: A Novel

      Very funny — Kurt Vonnegut

      Humorous and irrepressibly manic. — The Independent, UK

      Hilarious and delicate. — The Face, U.K.

      Indefatigable good humor . . . considerable charm. — Publishers Weekly

      Contents

      About Richard Crasta

      Epigraphs

      Preface

      Nobody Knows The Benzos I’ve Seen

      Benzodiazepines And Their Long-Term Dangers

      The Moral Failure of the Drug Companies

      A Personal Fantasy Wish List for Becoming Benzo-free

      Why this Book?

      Epilogue: Moments of Terror ...And Recovery

      Appendix I: Summarized KEY Information About Benzodiazepine Dependence and Withdrwal

      Appendix II: Letters From Molly

      Other Books by Richard Crasta

      Praise for Richard Crasta’s Books

      About the Author

      Dedication

      Dedicated to that inspiring and tireless campaigner for justice and humanity, Bernie Sanders, and to his dream, Medicare For All—with the additional clause: No deductibles, and a maximum co-pay of ten dollars.

      Epigraphs

      Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd,

      Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

      Raze out the written troubles of the brain,

      And with some sweet oblivious antidote

      Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff

      Which weighs upon the heart?

      — William Shakespeare, Macbeth Act 5, Scene 3

      There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude.

      — Aldous Huxley

      [They] wanted to forcibly drug me with Haldol, Ativan, Prozac: which would have chemically lobotomized me.

      — Susan Lindauer, ex-CIA Agent who became an antiwar activist.

      All doctors are legalized drug pushers. The doctor’s interests and the patient’s interests are misaligned.

      — Deepak Chopra, M.D., Interview on CNN

      [My doctor] didn’t really get it. No one did. No one would, who hadn’t experienced it. I looked fairly normal. No one could tell how hellish every second was.

      — Jack Hobson-Dupont, The Benzo Book

      And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.

      — Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

      "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." - Maya Angelou. Or, as another writer said (I paraphrase): To tell your story is so basic, such a fundamental part of being human.

      Preface

      [This is the 2020 revised edition—revised mostly in 2018—of a slightly different-titled book on the same subject. This edition recognizes that doctors and patients all come from the same families, with the same dreams and hopes; but somewhere along the way, we become victims and slaves of the System, which is designed to squeeze every drop of profit it can from us for the further enrichment of the Masters. And the novel coronavirus crisis has reminded us that many of us owe our lives to doctors and other medical workers who work on the frontlines, risking their lives to save us. Now for the real Preface.]

      Sometimes, a writer needs to take a leap of faith. And sometimes he has a story that, if left untold and bottled up inside him, could destroy him.

      This is one such story. Besides, I believe this is what true writers should do: tell their stories. If by chance others benefit from this book, or public policy changes result, it would delight me. If not, I do this because that’s the kind of writer I am: I tell my truth, regardless of the consequences or the price of telling the truth (even though memory can fudge, and subjectivity slant what you think to be the truth, it is all you have). As for my friends and those who wish to know me, I say: Everything you know about me and think of me is a lie, or shallow knowledge, unless you’ve read this story; it’s the elephant in my room.

      Also, with this drastic revision of an older book, I have come to the point wherein I believe I should speak now, or forever hold my peace. The window of opportunity, for me, is closing. My health is fast declining, and each day brings me closer to death’s door, and therefore cannot be wasted.

      Therefore, if all you need is authoritative information on how to get off benzodiazepines, please look elsewhere. If this book has any value, it’s in my story and in my personal testimony: my truth.

      Briefly, this is the story of accidental enslavement by a nefarious and enslaving chemical, invented by a company that went on to become an international pharmaceutical giant as a result of this invention (resulting in the world’s bestselling drug of the 1970s), and that suppressed the truth when it realized the truth would sharply slash its obscene profits.

      This is also the story of millions of other people; because despite considerable (though insufficient) advances in research, available information, and awareness, the prescription of this drug (and of its relatives, which are the same devil in modified disguises, meant to evade the law and confuse doctors and patients), continues worldwide.

      Who says so? None other than a highly accomplished physician with rare integrity and courage. In the 2011 edition of her 2002 work, Professor C Heather Ashton, DM, FRCP, Oxford grad, author of more than 50 papers on the subject of Benzodiazepines, writes:

      There has been little clinical progress in the treatment of benzodiazepine addiction and withdrawal syndrome since 2002, when the last edition of Benzodiazepines: How They Work and How to Withdraw appeared on www.benzo.org.uk. Benzodiazepines are still hugely profit-making drugs that are over-prescribed globally to tens of millions of mostly unwitting victims—often in excessive doses, and frequently for too long. Prescriptions for benzodiazepines and the similar 'Z-drugs' are actually increasing in many countries.

      I became aware of Dr. Heather Ashton and her work on the subject in mid-2003, when I joined an Internet-based support group called benzogroups.yahoo.com (no longer in existence). It was only after reading her work (also called The Ashton Manual) that a full understanding of my precarious situation came to me. A drug that had enslaved me earlier and that I had returned to in a moment of weakness during a period of great stress and insomnia in 1998, and at the encouragement of a practicing psychiatrist who was close to me: it had far more ominous long-term consequences than I had previously imagined.

      The Yahoo benzo group was then a very active group with thousands of members. The relatively greater awareness about the dangers and wide prevalence of Benzodiazepine dependency had resulted from the work of Dr. Ashton, as well as Ray Nimmo, who launched the UK support site called benzo.org.uk.

      A partial list of dangers, side-effects, and long-term damage from this class of drugs is given later in the book—both from the Web, and from my own personal discovery or recognition (mostly in retrospect). I was shocked that I had been prescribed this drug by various doctors, including my wife of 20 years, the last prescription being around nine months before divorce proceedings began. One of the major findings of Dr. Ashton is that benzodiazepine dependency is a physical dependency of the body, caused by

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