Marilyn O'Neil, the executive director of the Cape Breton Community Partnership on Drug Abuse. (CBC)

Nova Scotia is deciding whether to include tranquillizers and sleeping pills in the list of drugs it tracks under a prescription monitoring program.

The program, established in June 2005, was created to reduce the abuse and misuse of the monitored drugs. It currently tracks only narcotic prescriptions, such as morphine, methadone and cannabis.

The Cape Breton Community Partnership on Drug Abuse says prescriptions of benzodiazepines — the umbrella group that includes tranquillizers and sleeping pills — should be monitored because long-term use causes addiction and medical problems.

"For instance, 80 per cent of people who go into detox are using benzodiazepines," said Marilyn O'Neil, executive director of the group.

"It affects the nervous system in the same way alcohol does. It can cause wooziness, dizziness, drowsiness and — sometimes over long-term use — aggression."

O'Neil said there are more than half a million prescriptions for various types of benzodiazepines written in Nova Scotia every year, including those for Xanax, Ativan and Valium.

She estimated it would cost about $500,000 a year to add those drugs to the monitoring list.

Tracking drug abuse

Including them in the monitoring program would allow pharmacies across the province to see if someone is going to multiple doctors for the same prescription, or trying to get more than one pharmacy to fill the same prescription.

O'Neil said illegal drug users often combine benzodiazepines with other drugs.

"Certainly the success that happened with OxyContin is that it becomes very easy to monitor what's being used, how much is being used, who is prescribing it, what areas have higher use," said O'Neil.

Staff who work with the prescription monitoring program said they have determined whether benzodiazepines should be monitored, but they refused to discuss their findings until a report can be submitted to Maureen MacDonald, the minister of health.