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# FDA Efforts to Promote Safe Benzodiazepine Use
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/fda-efforts-to-promote-safe-benzodiazepine-use/
- Published: 2021-10-28T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T17:20:38.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5150473

CDER associate director for controlled substances **Marta Sokolowska** describes in an online [post](https://www.fda.gov/drugs/news-events-human-drugs/fda-holds-workshop-discuss-safe-use-benzodiazepines?utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fsource=govdelivery) a variety of Center actions focused on the safe use of benzodiazepines. “One critical element of increasing our understanding of their benefits and risks is through collaborations and stakeholder outreach,” she writes. “One of the agency’s initiatives on this important topic was to host a workshop earlier this year with Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy.”

Sokolowska says the workshop brought together regulators, academic researchers, clinicians, patient advocates, and other stakeholders to share data underlying the FDA benzodiazepine activities and to gather further input on safe use, including current prescribing and tapering approaches.

Speakers, she says, discussed the need for evidence-based tapering schedules and highlighted their perspectives on how and when to use the drugs safely, including:

- prescribing at the lowest effective dose and the shortest time and not co-prescribing with opioids unless other treatment options are not available;
- prescribing cautiously for patients with opioid or other substance use disorders or prior misuse of prescription medications, and for older adults with cognitive impairment or heightened risk for falls;
- obtaining informed consent from patients after educating them about side effects, safety issues, risk of dependence, and the importance of not sharing benzodiazepines;
- conducting regular follow-up with patients to assess benzodiazepine benefits and risks and offering patient-centered tapering/discontinuation options, especially if the benzodiazepines are not effective or the risks outweigh the benefits; and
- identifying and using safer treatments that are available for chronic anxiety and insomnia.