In Brief

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Barbiturates are physically addicting sedative-hypnotic agents that can cause severe withdrawal symptoms. Their original role was to treat anxiety and insomnia, but they became popular drugs of abuse in the 1960s and 1970s and the most commonly used drugs in suicide attempts. Use of barbiturates has decreased significantly with stricter governmental regulations and with the advent of the much safer benzodiazepines. Current therapeutic uses of barbiturates are to treat seizure disorders, headaches, gastrointestinal disorders, and increased intracranial pressure and for anesthesia induction, but they have no analgesic properties. Adolescents abuse barbiturates to achieve a euphoric “high,” to offset the undesirable anxiety caused by stimulant drugs, and to attempt suicide.

Monitoring the Future is a national survey of high school students that investigates their use of …