Editorial: Stronger warning is required

Monday, March 13, 2006 | 7:18 a.m.

Medical experts around the country are reporting an increasingly common factor after conducting blood tests on people whose bizarre behavior led to their arrests. More and more over the past few years the tests have been revealing a prescription sleep drug, Ambien, in their systems.

The cases include drivers going in the wrong direction on roads, or slamming into streets signs, curbs and other vehicles, all while being in a sleeplike state.

A Denver nurse who had taken Ambien was driving late on a 20-degree night in 2003 wearing only a thin nightshirt. After being involved in a fender-bender, she fought with responding police officers. According to a New York Times story, she told police the last thing she remembered was going to bed. Last summer a man went berserk on an airplane after taking Ambien, and said he remembered nothing of it.

Such stories are cropping up all over the country. IMS Health, a company that tracks drug statistics, told the Times that Ambien sales in the U.S. reached $2.2 billion last year. The drug's maker, Sanofi-Aventis, says the drug is safe when "taken as directed."

That may be the problem. A lot of people drink alcohol and take lots of other drugs, legal and illegal. We believe the Food and Drug Administration should conduct a through study to determine more fully how Ambien interacts with other drugs. It should also, immediately, order that stronger warning labels accompany this drug.