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Editor: Bob Battle
Profession: DUI Defense Lawyer

Category: Virginia DUI

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued warnings stating that prescription sleeping pills can cause unusual behavior like driving and eating while asleep. The FDA ordered the makers of Ambien, Lunesta and 11 other commonly used sleep medications to issue strong new label warnings those risks.

The agency had been reviewing the side effects of sleeping pills since last year, after some users of the widely prescribed drug Ambien complained that they sleepwalked and gorged themselves on food or were arrested while driving in their sleep. In each case, the consumers had no recollection of the events, which occurred after they had taken Ambien and gone to bed.

The agency said that it had reviewed its database of reports of problems with the 13 commonly used sleep medications and concluded that labeling changes were needed. In a news release today, the F.D.A. warned patients of the potential for "complex sleep-related behaviors" which may include "sleep-driving, making phone calls and preparing and eating food (while asleep)."

The release defined "sleep driving" as "driving while not fully awake after ingestion of a sedative hypnotic, with no memory of the event."

Read The New York Times article "FDA Issues warning on sleeping pills."