Officials Outline Plan to Curb Buprenorphine Abuse
Thursday March 6, 2008
Buprenorphine, marketed under the brand name Suboxone, was developed as a safer alternative for treating people addicted to heroin and painkillers compared to methadone. It was also designed to be resistant to abuse, but it hasn't turned out that way.
In spite of all the safeguards built into the drug when it was developed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and pharmaceutical firm Reckitt Benckiser, addicts are diverting the drug from its original use by crushing the pills, injecting them and even selling them on the street.
"The issue of diversion has been out there since 2004," said Dr. H. Westley Clark, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. "We've been concerned about that, and we will continue to be concerned about that."
A panel of federal experts studying the buprenorphine problem, made the following recommendations:
- Placing sterner warning labels on the drug
- Better training for prescribing physicians
- Improved monitoring of prescriptions and supplies.
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Photo: Clipart.com
Comments
“It was also designed to be resistant to abuse, but it hasn’t turned out that way.”
This isn’t true. It is resistant and preforming better than expected. Nothing is abuse proof, especially among a population with the disease of abuse. The same panel you cite, also concluded that although some misuse occurs and was expected, overwhelmingly the medication has been a success, and most of the diversion isn’t for abuse, but to self medicate. Since treatment is difficult to get for many due to the unprecedented restrictions placed on this lifesaving medication, people are forced to obtain it illegally until they can find a physician with capacity to treat. The tint amount of abuse has been blown out of proportion by overzealous reporters looking for sensationalism. The fact is buprenorphine is a poor choice for anyone intent on getting high, it blocks other opioids for days, has a ceiling to its effects, and can initiate withdrawal if not used under a doctor’s care.
The story doesn’t say buprenorphine is not effective for treatment of addiction, it says that it has been diverted for abuse and the government is concerned about that.
Here is another article from the Baltimore Sun.
BuddyT
Just another substitute. You can’t cure drug addiction with drugs>>>>>>….
I had been taking at least 15 norco a day 10mg of hydrocodone 250mg of acetaminophen each for the better part of 17 years without a doubt killing myself, now I take 1 Suboxone a day so you can call it substituting, I call it a life saving miracle and there isn’t any substitute for life! I wonder what these people who have so much time to worry about everyone else’s lives are trying so hard to bury about there own.