A very long article in the New York Times this morning examines both the benefits and considerable adverse consequences of using buprenorphine to treat opiate addiction. The piece points out that although many people have not heard of buprenorphine, its $1.55 billion in U.S. sales last year topped even the figures for Viagra. And with the Affordable Care Act set to expand treatment for drug addiction, problems with buprenorphine profiteering, diversion and overdose seem likely to get much worse.
The availability of a sublingual dissolvable strip from of the drug has led to inventive ways of hiding and smuggling doses. A prison official in Kentucky told the Times that “[i]t’s such a thin strip they’ll put it in the Holy Bible, let it melt and eat a page right out of the …