Endless prescription: Suboxone, Subutex plaguing region (Upper East Tenn)

[don-o]

Endless prescription: Suboxone, Subutex plaguing region

http://www.timesnews.net/Local/2016/07/03/An-endless-prescription-Suboxone-Subutex-becoming-an-epidemic-in-the-region.html?ci=stream&lp=1&p=1

Suboxone. Subutex.

For many, they mean nothing. But they are at the heart of a disturbing trend which has seen people move to the area just to obtain them, caused doctors to leave other jobs to prescribe them and left hundreds of drug addicts with an endless prescription.

It is a problem law enforcement has seen explode in the last five years.

“We routinely arrest people for drug offenses and find them in possession of both buprenorphine (Suboxone or Subutex) and some other powerful narcotic (heroin, opiate-based pain pills, etc.) that buprenorphine is supposed to be weaning them off of. This phenomenon directly contradicts their intended purpose,” said Kingsport Police Department Public Information Officer Tom Patton.

snip

The intended use of buprenorphine, the main ingredient in Suboxone and Subutex, is to help people addicted to pain pills achieve sobriety by providing an alternative to their drug of choice. Counseling and therapy are supposed to be provided along with the prescription.

Over time, the dosage should be reduced gradually until the patient is completely drug free.

That is not happening.

snip

Patients are not the only ones getting in on the act. Doctors are reportedly leaving their current work to start prescribing buprenorphine.

“Greed is taking over,” said Dr. Randy Jessee, senior vice president of specialty services for Frontier Health. “We are hearing stories about doctors quitting their ER work, quitting their practice and going into the Suboxone business.”

According to the Department of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, there are 94 buprenorphine prescribers in the greater metro areas of Johnson City, Kingsport and Bristol. And that number could be an underestimate because prescribers decide whether they want to be listed in the DSAMH locator, according to the 2015 DSAMH “Medication-Assisted Treatment Substance Use Tool Guide.”

It would never be obvious to anyone driving around town that so many buprenorphine prescribers exist. There is a reason why.

exc

[don-o]

True story: I had a friend, a recovering addict / alcoholic, who landed a "counselor"  position in one of these facilities. Three months later, he's driving a Corvette and living large.

Six months later, things go South with some foolishness at the job (the love of money, and that); he eventually stiffs my son for several thousand on a house rehab they were doing, and he high tails it for Alaska.

 

[truth_seeker]

Who would have guessed that mandating that everybody be insured, and that all insurance provide for "recovery" programs might lead to abuses ?

There has been an explosion in the numbers of "sober living" facilities in my area. Because there became huge profits, in what used to be mainly an altruistic endeavor.

With over 22 years clean and sober, I know something about all of this. I kicked alcohol cold-turkey, and more recently I kicked pain meds cold-turkey after a major surgery 3 years ago.

With the recent surgery, when I told the PA I wanted off, he suggested cutting the dose in 1/2. I told him I preferred none, and it worked.

The medical profession plays a HUGE role in facilitating the notion we are "entitled" to be pain free.

In the words of my high school football coach, WWII combat vet, "It will feel better, when it quits hurting."

[don-o]

Who would have guessed that mandating that everybody be insured, and that all insurance provide for "recovery" programs might lead to abuses ?
 

Seems that any problem the fedgov tries to solve just gets worse.

Congrats on the 22 years. I'm  nine years myself. We have a weekly beginners meeting for men in "rehab". Both drunks and junkies. Been doing it for five years. See a lot more making their third, fourth, seventh go at the "softer, easier way" than those who stay sober.

The saddest thing is how many we know of who die. Cunning, baffling, powerful.

The illusion that either drunks or junkies can alter their consciousness with chemicals and not ultimately pay the price is a death dealing one.

[EC]

7 years, come November.  Don't go to meetings much any more, maybe three times a month, tops, and that more for paying back by paying forward than any real need of my own.