Suboxone is a medication created to treat opiate addiction. For the first time a medication assisted treatment for addiction is available inside of a doctor's office. Addiction is a medical condition often treated as a moral deficiency or crash of will. Methadone maintenance has been used as a primary treatment for opiate addicts for over 50 years. The good intentions of Methadone maintenance aside, the federal government managed to build a program that makes opiate addicts stand in line like sheep at a feeding line. Addicted people have a disease and should not be exiled. Suboxone changes this and brings addiction treatment inside the doctor's office as a medical condition, the way it should have been done all along.
Suboxone is a combination prescription medication made of Buprenorphine and Naloxone. Buprenorphine is the ingredient that treats the addiction by stopping withdrawal and decreasing or stopping cravings. Suboxone can be prescribed in the confidentiality of the doctor's office then filled at a pharmacy. It is privately treated like other diseases. Addiction is a biological disease that changes the way a person's brain functions, often in ways that cannot be predicted. Society has put the treatment of addiction on the back burner in favor of building prisons, jails, and wasting time coming up with harsher criminal penalties rather than working on prevention and intervention.
Suboxone treatment does not come without its difficulties. Because it is the first office based treatment available to opiate addicts there are many doctors jumping on the bandwagon only to make money. Not every doctor can prescribe Suboxone. Shame on you Suboxone doctors who take advantage of it and charge impossible prices. Where is your oath? The FDA highly regulates it and requires doctors who want to prescribe it to take a short training. Then they can treat 35 or 100 people. It's also about time that doctors have to take some addiction training because the average doctor knows about as much as the typical stereotypes.
Unfortunately, just because Suboxone treats addiction like a medical condition, it does not make access easy. It is expensive and there is minimal access for many addicts. Doctors and pharmacies charge outrageous prices. Some doctors say to hurting patients "you'll save that heroin money by coming to me for Suboxone" as a form of manipulation. They should be stopped. It is wonderful that someone finally invented a medication, a treatment, for opiate-addicted people that enables them to go to their doctor. Methadone maintenance therapy still exists. Using office based Suboxone can alleviate the shame and embarrassment of being forced to stand in sheep lines for your medication.
Every year, we are bombarded by breast cancer walks, runs, and fund-raising opportunities, but where are all these chances for treating addiction? Non-existent. Suboxone treating addiction like a medical condition is hopefully paving the way toward an overall shift in focus. Instead of working to abolish the addict, we need to push for addiction research, community education programs, and intervention. The tactics currently at hand are not working. This stupid "war on drugs" is nothing but a waste of money. What other diseases are there where we jail the afflicted?
Hooray, Suboxone, it is about time.
Opiate Kick: Suboxone Information