Since their introduction in the 1960s, benzodiazepines (BZDs), have readily gained a wide popularity and become some of the most widely prescribed psychiatric drugs. However, they have recently come under a critical reappraisal because of their potential harm if abused and because of the potential dependence with long-term use. Consequently, many psychiatrists have become overly reluctant to prescribe these drugs, to the extent that many patients, even those severely anxious, who will never live normally without BZDs or a similar substitute, have been refused them. These authors studied 400 case notes of patients diagnosed as suffering from anxiety or a related disorder in 2 hospitals to find out the pattern of BZD prescriptions in Saudi ArabiThey found that the pattern is inconsistent and varies significantly between the 2 hospitals, and not necessarily for medical reasons. They highlight the danger of such attitudes, and the place of BZDs in developing countries.