TRANQUILISER USERS SEEK JUSTICE IN EUROPE

People who claim they became addicted to prescription drugs are to take
their case for compensation to the European Court of Human Rights.

Previous attempts to sue the manufacturers of Valium and other
tranquilisers have been thrown out by the British courts.

Now the human rights group, Liberty, is arguing that thousands of people
who claim they were damaged by such drugs have been denied a fair hearing.

"It's a fundamental principle in the European Convention that a right to a
fair trial includes a right of access to a court, and they've never had
that," said Liberty spokesman Philip Leach.

The group is taking 30 cases to Europe.

It has been claimed that a third of the adult population is on some form of
tranquiliser, sleeping pill or anti-depressant.

Originally billed as a pick-me-up, tranquilisers were claimed to be a pill
for every ill. Since 1988 doctors have been warned of the potentially
addictive nature of some of the drugs.

Limits are now imposed on the amounts which can be supplied.

Dr Robert Lefever, from the Promis Recovery Clinic, first warned about the
dangers of tranquilisers 20 years ago.

He said the medical profession was still concealing the true extent of the
problem: "I do believe that the major statement about late 20th century
prescribing habits will be about the use of mood-altering drugs. How on
earth did doctors not realise what we were doing?"

But a leading psychiatrist, Dr Cosmo Hallstrom, told the BBC that people
should not overreact: "There now needs to be some realistic view of where
the pendulum should be."

Obviously we don't want to dope the population up, but nor do we want to
under-treat people who really do have a problem."