By Amy Orciari Herman
Buprenorphine (Suboxone, Subutex), once hailed as a “holy grail” in addiction medicine, “has become both medication and dope: a treatment with considerable successes and also failures, as well as a street and prison drug bedeviling local authorities,” … (Source: Physician’s First Watch current issue)

By Amy Orciari Herman
Buprenorphine (Suboxone, Subutex), once hailed as a “holy grail” in addiction medicine, “has become both medication and dope: a treatment with considerable successes and also failures, as well as a street and prison drug bedeviling local authorities,” … (Source: Physician’s First Watch current issue)

By Amy Orciari Herman
Buprenorphine (Suboxone, Subutex), once hailed as a “holy grail” in addiction medicine, “has become both medication and dope: a treatment with considerable successes and also failures, as well as a street and prison drug bedeviling local authorities,” … (Source: Physician’s First Watch current issue)

The divided world of buprenorphine clinics serves as a crossroads where addicts’ tumultuous lives converge with a turbulent treatment environment.     (Source: NYT Health)

The divided world of buprenorphine clinics serves as a crossroads where addicts’ tumultuous lives converge with a turbulent treatment environment.     (Source: NYT Health)

The divided world of buprenorphine clinics serves as a crossroads where addicts’ tumultuous lives converge with a turbulent treatment environment.     (Source: NYT Health)

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 …

High hopes for buprenorphine, an effective treatment for opioid addiction, have been tempered by a messy reality: health complications and deaths, unscrupulous doctors and a reputation as a street drug.     (Source: NYT Health)

High hopes for buprenorphine, an effective treatment for opioid addiction, have been tempered by a messy reality: health complications and deaths, unscrupulous doctors and a reputation as a street drug.     (Source: NYT Health)

High hopes for buprenorphine, an effective treatment for opioid addiction, have been tempered by a messy reality: health complications and deaths, unscrupulous doctors and a reputation as a street drug.     (Source: NYT Health)