There is now a considerable body of sociological work on the reasons for long-term benzodiazepine use among specific social groups and the social meaning of such drugs for patients and their doctors; however, there have been few attempts to take a more macro-level perspective and map the controversy surrounding these drugs and the reasons for their becoming a public issue as well as a personal problem. An initial attempt to develop such an analysis was undertaken by Gabe and Bury, who identified three stages that a problem passes through before it is recognized as a social problem. These stages are emergence (for a problem to emerge, certain objective conditions must be met); legitimation and mobilization of public opinion (the problem must be legitimated by the media and public opinion orchestrated); and recognition by the state (the state must underwrite any response it makes with a substantial political commitment and financial outlay). This paper applies this developmental approach to the debate about one of the new generation of short-acting benzodiazepines, Halcion, which is prescribed as a sleeping tablet. In comparing perspectives on the use of Halcion in the United States and the United Kingdom, this case study supports the value of the Gabe and Bury model's three-stage approach; however, the author (Gabe) advises that further comparative work should be conducted with prescribed drugs other than benzodiazepines in order to substantiate fully the claim that the model represents a "natural history" of drugs as a social problem. 1 table and 87 references