‘This has been swept under the carpet for years’

years of unnecessary suffering and disability,’ says Paul Flynn MP, chair of the APPG. ‘And yet — unlike illicit drugs — there are hardly any dedicated services to support them.’

The Mail is also backing a call by the parliamentary group for an urgent inquiry to examine the extent and causes of the over-prescribing problem and the lack of support services available to patients.

What is so shocking is that with benzodiazepines in particular, for 30 years doctors have been specifically warned about the risks of long term use. And yet 16million prescriptions have been handed out for these drugs — for weeks, months and even years.

Another key concern is finding out just how many people are hooked on prescription pills such as opioid painkillers. ‘nobody has any real idea of the numbers,’ says Harry Shapiro, the director of online information service DrugWise.

Dr Abbasi believes that ‘many’ of the 12 to 13 million people prescribed these every year are dependent. ‘But because there is no specific help available, we believe a lot more people are just not coming forward.’

An inquiry into the prescription of these drugs ‘is decades overdue’, says longtime campaigner, Barry Haslam, an accountant from Oldham who lost a decade of his life to tranquillisers and painkillers prescribed for anxiety (he now runs the information website, benzo.org.uk).

‘I cannot thank the Daily Mail enough for publicly backing the call for a helpline and an inquiry,’ he says.

‘This scandal has been swept under the carpet for decades by governments terrified of taking the lid off a Pandora’s box. In the process they have ignored the suffering of innocent patients who’ve only taken these drugs as directed by their doctors.’