Clinical detoxification of bromazolam using diazepam: a case report

An increasing number of new psychoactive substances (NPS), such as designer benzodiazepines, are becoming available on the recreational drug market. These are new unregistered substances and thereby an attempt to evade legislation. Often there is very limited clinical information available regarding these NPS, which could result in undesirable clinical outcomes in the management of intoxications, dependencies and withdrawals following NPS use. In this case report we describe a 23-year-old woman, who was admitted to our residential addiction care facility for the detoxification of the designer benzodiazepine bromazolam. Her daily use of 6 mg bromazolam was converted to 20 mg diazepam. Although we expected a higher dose would have been needed, 20 mg was sufficient and was tapered without complications. This case report demonstrates the safe conversion of 6 mg of bromazolam to 20 mg of diazepam by combining the use of fixed-dose and symptom-triggered-dose regimens. More clinical data is necessary to formulate advisory management for the detoxification of bromazolam and other designer benzodiazepines.