The drug Suboxone could combat the heroin epidemic. So why is it so hard to get?

Yet even as heroin use surges in the United States, destroying neighborhoods and families — drug overdoses kill more people than any other kind of accident — both addicts and doctors say there are barriers that keep some from the treatment they desperately need.

 British Pharma Firm Charged for Falsely Claiming Its Opioid-Addiction Drugs Were a Safer Option

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged the British pharmaceutical company Indivior with fraud, making a case that the company had swindled Medicare, Medicaid, and other health care providers by falsely marketing its opioids to medical professionals as less prone to abuse than generic alternatives, according to an indictment.

 The Truth About Suboxone

Studies show that maintenance therapy is the most effective treatment for opiate addiction. So why are abstinence fundamentalists so bitterly against it?

 Why More People Can't Get Suboxone, The Drug That Might Have Saved Prince

But in truth, the reasons drugs like Suboxone aren’t more commonly administered are more cultural—and arguably more entrenched and difficult to solve—than a mere issue of training.

Addiction Treatment With a Dark Side

Partly because of these restrictions, a volatile subculture has arisen, with cash-only buprenorphine clinics feeding a thriving underground market that caters to addicts who buy it to stave off withdrawal or treat themselves because they cannot find or afford a doctor; to recreational users who report a potent, durable buzz; and to inmates who see it as “prison heroin” and, especially in a new dissolvable filmstrip form, as ideal contraband.

How Is Suboxone Treatment Different than Drug Abuse?

Buprenorphine has numerous advantages over methadone and naltrexone. As a medication-assisted treatment, it suppresses withdrawal symptoms and cravings for opioids, does not cause euphoria in the opioid-dependent patient, and it blocks the effects of the other (problem) opioids for at least 24 hours. Success rates, as measured by retention in treatment and one-year sobriety, have been reported as high as 40 to 60 percent in some studies.

5 myths about using Suboxone to treat opiate addiction

Suboxone, a combination medication containing buprenorphine and naloxone, is one of the main medications used for medication-assisted therapy (MAT) for opiate addiction. Use of MATs has been shown to lower the risk of fatal overdoses by approximately 50%.

Dying To Be Free

There’s A Treatment For Heroin Addiction That Actually Works. Why Aren’t We Using It?

The Effects of Suboxone Use

While Suboxone is used in the treatment of addiction, the drug itself can lead to tolerance and dependence. Suddenly stopping use of Suboxone can elicit unpleasant withdrawal effects, and prove much more difficult to quit than thought.

When an Iowa Family Doctor Takes On the Opioid Epidemic

Few primary care doctors are willing to do what Nicole Gastala has: endure the challenges of prescribing buprenorphine, a medication for opioid addiction.

Why it’s easier to be prescribed an opioid painkiller than the treatment for opioid addiction

While little training is required for doctors to prescribe opioids for pain, onerous restrictions are placed on physicians who wish to and currently do prescribe oral buprenorphine. These restrictions exist because buprenorphine does have the potential to be misused. Yet the restrictions placed on it far exceed those on prescription opioid painkillers, for which the potential for abuse is high.