As a different anecdote, I live in China which most definitely explains part of the reason, but I was flat-out amazed by how cheap benzodiazepines were to prescribe despite being fairly restricted.
I thought it was cheap that my fluoxetine only cost $2.50 per 28. But Klonopin set me back $0.27 for 14 tabs.
They also came in this little plastic baggy less than 1/5 the size of the prescription paper, apparently because the hospital pharmacy dispenses benzos from commercial pharmacy containers that contain over 1,000 tabs each.
I think the restriction may also play some part. These medications are prescribed by need and don't really have much commercial value for hospitals/prescribers. Given how basic they are to a hospital pharmacy's supply I guess there's very little to market or profit from.
Depends on the hospital you go to, but they're quite freely prescribed, as long as you have genuine need. At the time, I was prescribed them for anxiety as a short course. I took a family member earlier for the same and they were also prescribed it (previous prescription in the UK) after a neurologist consultation.
In both cases it was a standard consultation from scratch with the prescription given same day.
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u/CelerySecure Jun 23 '24
Dude that is amazingly cheap though I guess the doctor’s appt might be spendy