Kristen Gwynne -- Why Drug Dealers Are Now Competing with Doctors to Help Addicts

Twenty-three-year-old Joe*, a publicist living in New York City, doesn’t want to be buying his prescription drugs on the black market. It’s just that he doesn’t really have another choice.

As a recovering drug addict, Joe has spent almost three years successfully managing his former oxycontin addiction with suboxone, a prescription medication that reduces cravings and withdrawal symptoms for drugs like heroin and prescription painkillers. He first began suboxone when he was in college and was able to receive free treatment and prescriptions. But since graduation, the cost of obtaining his treatment legally has become unaffordable—largely because of the American health care system.

“Recently, I paid $100 for 20 [dissolveable suboxone] strips. That will last me over a year,” said Joe, “Now, if I were to go to a doctor, it  would cost $300 cash just to walk in and see the doctor for the first time. If you can use your insurance, you can get it a little cheaper, but a lot of insurances don’t cover it,” he said. Legally, each strip can cost a whopping $15 dollars without coverage.

Forced to choose between obtaining his treatment illegally and seeing an expensive doctor, Joe is buying on the black market. And he isn’t alone. Addiction  is so taboo in this society that even the medical establishment shies away from it. Few physicians are willing to prescribe suboxone and regulations have significantly limited the patients that those few physicians are allowed to prescribe.  The social stigma of addiction has helped create a thriving black market for the drug—one that poses real dangers for addicts trying to stay clean.

Suboxone is a life-saver for opioid addicts risking the overdose associated with shifting heroin purity, or, typically, mixing prescription drugs with alcohol.  Buprenorphine (a generic name for suboxone) binds to opioid receptors and only partially activates them, while naloxone blocks some opioid receptors from activation and reduces the chances of overdose.  Suboxone patients can without heroin or oxys, and at the same time minimize or avoid withdrawal symptoms that include physical pain, severe nausea and vomiting.

Read more.. http://www.alternet.org/health-care-disaster-why-drug-dealers-are-now-competing-doctors-help-addicts