Little over a decade after its 1963 debut on the prescription-drug market in the United States, Valium had become a widely prescribed tranquilizer and began attracting media attention for what was seen as its rampant abuse. Reports found that many prescriptions for diazepam, Valium's generic name, were written by general practitioners, not mental-health professionals, and that a disproportionate number were given to women over 30 to control so-called "free-floating" anxiety.

Valium, taken from the Latin word meaning "to be strong and well" and classified as an anxiolytic, or anxiety-dissolving drug, was developed in the New Jersey labs of pharmaceutical giant Hoffman-LaRoche by Dr. Leo Sternbach, who had also synthesized the compound that came on the market as Librium in 1960. Librium had been developed to compete with a rival company's popular tranquilizer, Miltown. All of these new drugs were targeted at middle-class Americans, many of whom were unlikely to visit a...