Hospital admissions due to acute barbiturate poisoning per million population in England and Wales have decreased since 1965 at about the same rate as NHS prescriptions for barbiturates. Admissions due to poisoning with other drugs have increased, but, largely because the benzodiazepine hypnotics and tranquilizers are much less toxic than the barbiturates that they are replacing, deaths from poisoning with all solids and liquids have deceased.