Day: 01/04/2015

7/2004, Impaired Driving Incidents Expected with New Heroin Treatment

http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=333&issue_id=72004

Under the Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000, approved physicians can prescribe buprenorphine to treat up to 30 patients. With the prescription, addicts will receive a 30-day supply of the drug and are allowed five to six months of refills. Buprenorphine will be sold under two names: Subutex for the initial stage of treatment, and Suboxone, which also includes the drug naloxone, for maintenance treatment.

Before dispensing the narcotic, physicians must undergo eight hours of training and register with the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and the DEA. Under the regulations, doctors are not allowed to provide buprenorphine for pain – only opiate addiction…

In later stages of an overdose, buprenorphine may cause a person to have floppy limbs, blue lips, and an inability to regain consciousness leading to a coma.

Testing for Methadone or Buprenorphine: Law enforcement officers and prosecutors will also need to make a special testing request to their drug toxicology laboratories. No one should assume that a screen of blood or urine for opiates would detect methadone or buprenorphine. The results of a special test for buprenorphine can help prosecutors secure a conviction and treatment for the offender, and it can allow the offender’s physician and other treatment professionals to better treat and monitor the driver.

Enforcement, prosecution, and court-monitored treatment have a major role in keeping drug abuse in check on and the impaired driver off the roads. With the advent of this new heroin treatment program law enforcement and prosecutors need to prepare for the abuse and incidents of impaired driving.

11/22/2014, Experts say abuse of addiction drug suboxone has dangerous consequences

http://www.timesreporter.com/article/20141122/NEWS/141129705?template=printart

Oversight is in the hands of physicians. However, the number of doctors who dispense the medication is not known — and there are no licensing procedures that would allow state agencies to regulate them. “There isn’t a license or registration in place to regulate doctors or small groups of doctors who distribute that prescription — namely suboxone,” said Bill Schmidt, an attorney with the State Medical Board of Ohio’s investigative counsel.

The Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration database lists 649 Ohio doctors who dispense the drug and who are in compliance with the Federal Drug Abuse Treatment Act of 2000. Those listed in the database voluntarily make their names public — and an unknown amount do not, according to Eric R. Wandersleben, director of media relations and outreach at the Ohio Department of Mental Health & Addiction Services…

“The reality is that medication-assisted treatment isn’t very effective without therapy,” Hall said. “And therapy isn’t really effective without medication.”

But not all suboxone providers agree with that statement. While Dr. Nicholas Atanasoff recommends some form of therapy to his patients, he doesn’t believe that mandating it would be helpful because it could restrict much-needed access to medication…

He added that there is no clinical evidence that mandated therapy alters outcomes. He also said mandated therapy can make it difficult for people to obtain jobs and support their families. “What if they don’t go? Do you withhold the lifesaving treatment from them?” he asked. “It’s a counterintuitive situation that doesn’t exist in medicine anywhere else.”

Is the treatment of chronic pain as “life-saving” as the treatment of addiction?

The Ohio Department of Health reported that accidental drug overdoses increased 366 percent from 2000 to 2012, with opiate abuse leading by 72 percent. The state health department also reported that the number of people diagnosed with opiate dependence has risen from 5,790 in 2001 to 24,833 in 2012….

6/19/2014, Increase Access to Buprenorphine, Senators Urge Federal Officials

http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/increase-access-buprenorphine-senators-urge-federal-officials/

The American Society of Addiction Medicine has proposed raising the patient limit to as high as 500 for doctors who complete 40 hours of training, the article notes.

Some federal officials said they do not want to raise the patient limit because buprenorphine can be abused. Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said buprenorphine overdoses are common in Europe, where the drug is more available. Raising the patient limit could lead to buprenorphine “pill mills,” some officials noted at the forum…

Since pill mills for bupe were reported on over a year ago, where have these “officials” been?

11/16/2013, Addiction Treatment With a Dark Side

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/health/in-demand-in-clinics-and-on-the-street-bupe-can-be-savior-or-menace.html?pagewanted=all

Suboxone did not save Miles Malone, 20; it killed him. In 2010, a friend texted Mr. Malone an invitation to use the drug recreationally — “we can do the suboxins as soon as I give them to u, iight, dude?” — and he died that night in South Berwick, Me., of buprenorphine poisoning. The friend, Shawn Verrill, was sentenced this summer to 71 months in prison…

Suboxone is the blockbuster drug most people have never heard of. Surpassing well-known medications like Viagra and Adderall, it generated $1.55 billion in United States sales last year, its success fueled by an exploding opioid abuse epidemic and the embrace of federal officials who helped finance its development and promoted it as a safer, less stigmatized alternative to methadone…

It has attracted unscrupulous doctors and caused more health complications and deaths than its advocates acknowledge.

It has also become a lucrative commodity, creating moneymaking opportunities — for manufacturers, doctors, drug dealers and even patients — that have undermined a public health innovation meant for social good. And the drug’s problems have emboldened some insurers to limit coverage of the medication, which cost state Medicaid agencies at least $857 million over a three-year period through 2012, a New York Times survey found…

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…

Many buprenorphine doctors are addiction experts capable, they say, of treating far more than the federal limit of 100 patients. But because of that limit, an unmet demand for treatment has created a commercial opportunity for prescribers, attracting some with histories of overprescribing the very pain pills that made their patients into addicts…

Nationally, at least 1,350 of 12,780 buprenorphine doctors have been sanctioned for offenses that include excessive narcotics prescribing, insurance fraud, sexual misconduct and practicing medicine while impaired. Some have been suspended or arrested, leaving patients in the lurch…

The addiction drug was a “primary suspect” in 420 deaths in the United States reported to the Food and Drug Administration since it reached the market in 2003, according to a Times analysis of federal data.

But buprenorphine is not being monitored systematically enough to gauge the full scope of its misuse, some experts say. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not track buprenorphine deaths, most medical examiners do not routinely test for it, and neither do most emergency rooms, prisons, jails and drug courts.

“I’ve been studying the emergence of potential drug problems in this country for over 30 years,” said Eric Wish, the director of the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the University of Maryland. “This is the first drug that nobody seems to want to know about as a potential problem.”

The government has a vested interest in its success.

The treatment is the fruit of an extraordinary public-private partnership between a British company and the American government, which financed clinical trials and awarded protection from competition after the drug’s patent expired…

In an 11th-hour bid to thwart generic competition and dominate the market with its patent-protected Suboxone filmstrip, the company sought to convince regulators that the tablet form, which earned it billions of dollars, now presented a deadly risk to children as packaged in pill bottles.

The F.D.A. did not agree. Early this year, it approved generic tablets and asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate potentially anticompetitive business practices by the company…

“I remember the early days when we met with the pharma rep in the area — I don’t think he was trying to mislead us — he truly believed it was a miracle drug,” she said. “But they way underestimated the potential for abuse, which means to me they really don’t understand addiction.”

…and it exposed the painkiller’s “Achilles’ heel” — “the rather high incidence of nausea and vomiting.”

In the mid-1970s, Dr. Lewis began shipping the drug to the United States Narcotic Farm in Lexington, Ky., to test its abuse potential on detoxified addicts. A prison that doubled as a treatment hospital, the farm was home to the government’s Addiction Research Center (and at times to jazz greats like Chet Baker, Elvin Jones and Sonny Rollins).

Like heroin, buprenorphine attaches to the brain’s opioid receptors, but it does not plug in as completely. It is slower acting and longer lasting, attenuating the rush of sensation and eliminating the plummets afterward…

A devoted cadre of government scientists saw buprenorphine as a “holy grail” and over the next few decades “floated in between the public and private sector for most of their careers,” Dr. Campbell said. The farm’s pharmacist would become an executive vice president of Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals, for example, and the company would contract with the former National Institute on Drug Abuse director who originally promoted the public-private partnership…

The federal drug abuse institute financed the two big clinical trials necessary to win F.D.A. approval for $28 million and later spent an additional $52.4 million for studies at its clinical research sites. At least $19 million more in studies are underway.

Further, the F.D.A. granted the company a seven-year monopoly based on its claim that it would never recoup its development costs. (Reckitt now has a market value of $56.7 billion; 21 percent of its operating profits last year came from Suboxone.)…

The concerns grew from other countries’ experiences with buprenorphine treatment over the previous decade; successes had been accompanied by abuses. So F.D.A. officials insisted on the addition of an “abuse deterrent” — naloxone. If addicts crushed and injected the tablets, the naloxone would precipitate excruciating withdrawal symptoms.

The Drug Enforcement Administration was skeptical, saying studies showed that naloxone did not provoke “any evidence of withdrawal” in “a substantial percentage” of opiate abusers, and that the amount in the proposed compound would produce only a half-hour of “unpleasantness” in those susceptible.

Skeptical, too, were buprenorphine’s original champions at Reckitt, who would have preferred a different additive or more naloxone. “It was not a perfect solution,” Dr. Lewis said.

Even so, Suboxone — four parts buprenorphine, one part naloxone — was created. And in late 2002, along with Subutex (plain buprenorphine), it was approved by the F.D.A. just as its target audience was about to expand unexpectedly.

An estimated 2.5 million Americans were dependent on or abused opioids last year, mostly painkillers, although heroin dependence has skyrocketed, with the number of addicts doubling over a decade to 467,000, government data indicate. In 2010, the last year studied, 19,154 people died of opioid overdoses.

“Had buprenorphine never been released and all we had was methadone, that number would be much higher,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the president of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing.

Early Successes

In the early days of Suboxone, with Reckitt Benckiser barely marketing its own drug, Dr. Kolodny, then a New York City health official, crisscrossed the city with colleagues to spread the word about the new medication, entice public hospitals to try it with $10,000 rewards and urge doctors to get certified.

“We had New York City staff out there acting like drug reps,” Dr. Kolodny said.

He himself became a prescriber. “All of a sudden, I started getting calls from white kids on Long Island who were all addicted to pain pills,” he said. “It was 2003 or 2004, and my first experience of the painkiller epidemic.”

Reckitt Benckiser gradually built a stable of doctors paid to advocate use of the treatment, Dr. Salsitz among them…

“That’s how buprenorphine became a street drug in our area.”

Nonetheless, the federal government subsequently authorized him to prescribe buprenorphine and then expand his patient load.

“Very few if any” doctors are denied permission unless they are “under investigation or something pops up,” said Rusty Payne, a D.E.A. spokesman…

After that, the woman bought her buprenorphine on the street for a year — saving $5,500 in medical and counseling fees, she noted — until she found an addiction specialist with an opening.

In some areas, like New York City, there is almost a glut of buprenorphine prescribers. In others, specialists routinely turn away addicts begging for help…

Joseph McMahon IV, a gregarious, troubled New Yorker, was prescribed a couple of thousand Suboxone pills over nearly three years. Still, he overdosed on other drugs at least five times and at 25 died of one final overdose in December 2011, turning his father, a retired New York City fire lieutenant, into a bereft chronicler of Suboxone abuse…

For Dr. Junig, early positive experiences with older patients have been offset by rocky ones with a new generation of heroin and “poly-drug” abusers…

So when uninsured patients clamored for the cheaper generic, some doctors, including Dr. Kolodny, started accommodating them.

“At first, I did believe the marketing that there was a booby trap in there,” he said. “But my impression is that it doesn’t work as well as promised as an abuse deterrent.”

The most recent data signal an escalating problem with buprenorphine…

In 2011, emergency room visits for the nonmedical use of buprenorphine were estimated at 21,483, nearly five times what they were in 2006. Also in 2011, poison centers recorded 3,625 cases of toxic buprenorphine exposure, nearly five times as high as the previous year.

More young children were hospitalized because of accidental ingestion of buprenorphine than for any other medication in 2010 and 2011, a federal study found. Another study, financed by Reckitt, of 2,380 buprenorphine overdoses in young children found that 587 had to be hospitalized in intensive care units and that four died.

John Burke, the president of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators, said buprenorphine remains “down on the totem pole” of worrisome prescription drugs.

“I wouldn’t say buprenorphine is not a serious problem; it’s a product for addicts, so the propensity for diversion is probably much higher than with the other prescription drugs,” he said. “But oxycodone, hydrocodone, Xanax — those make up the bulk of the problem.”

In June, Michelle Wilcox, 27, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and surgical gloves, handed a Maine pharmacy technician a note: “Give me all the 8 mg Subs you have. I have a weapon and I will use it.” She walked out with 84 doses of Suboxone — worth about $640 — and drove off in a pickup truck, only to be arrested within hours, according to documents and interviews.

“She was just desperate,” said Sheriff Scott Nichols of Franklin County, Me. “She said her own medication had been stolen.”

Ms. Wilcox awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to felony robbery charges in federal court.

In Maine, Ms. Katz, the Portland health official, described a seemingly unstoppable flow of Suboxone onto the streets in recent years, with addicts injecting it. Shawn Verrill, serving time for Miles Malone’s death from buprenorphine, said he used to sell the drug in York Beach to supplement his income as a lobster deliveryman.

“Every kid on the beach was looking for it,” he said. “The high lasts all day.”

Fifty deaths are listed as suicides, and 69 involve unintentional overdoses, drug abuse or drug misuse. Thirty were fetal or infant deaths after exposure in the womb…

The company lured patients directly by offering discounts for the film while raising the price of its tablets. It used rebates to persuade public insurers to give preference to the film. At least 15 state Medicaid agencies do; West Virginia even passed a law banning the pills and requiring the film…

In July, Reckitt Benckiser’s stock suffered its biggest one-day loss in two years after CVS Caremark announced that it would drop the film from its preferred drug list in favor of tablets. And there is a new brand on the shelves, too: Zubsolv, which its manufacturer, Orexo, says has “higher bioavailability, faster dissolve time and smaller tablet size with a new menthol taste.” Orexo’s United States medical director is Dr. Gitlow, the addiction medical society president…

For now, though, patients whose lives have been transformed by the medication say they feel stressed by the struggle to get and pay for treatment, the long waiting lists, the doctors who overcharge and the ones whose offices are shut down. The misuse and abuse of the drug make even their own relatives suspicious of them — not to mention the public and private insurers that restrict the dosage and length of treatment, despite studies showing that higher doses improve treatment retention rates and that quitting buprenorphine often leads to relapse.

Betty Jo Cumberledge, a home health aide in West Virginia, said her insurer paid “forever” for the potent narcotics she took for back pain. But it cut her off this fall after two years of Suboxone treatment for her resulting addiction. “That’s just not humanly respectful in my opinion,” she said…

Buprenorphine Overdose Symptoms and Treatment

http://www.projectknow.com/research/buprenorphine-overdose/

Despite its relative safety when compared to other opioids, there are many people addicted to buprenorphine. According to information provided by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), buprenorphine is more likely to be found during a drug bust than methadone. It has also grown significantly in popularity since it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The DEA notes that 2010 there were 10,537 reports of buprenorphine found in drug busts, compared to 90 reports in 2003.

According to Emergency Medicine News, buprenorphine is a more popular street drug than GHB, Ecstasy, or cocaine in Scandinavian countries. In these countries, snorting or injecting buprenorphine is a common recreational activity. As of January 2009, buprenorphine abuse could also not be detected in urine tests, which makes it a popular street drug for more affluent people…

In almost all fatal overdose cases, the overdose was caused by mixing buprenorphine with other drugs. In a 2001 study, published in Forensic Science International, benzodiazepines were the most common drugs to be fatally combined with buprenorphine…

3/25/2014, Does Suboxone (buprenorphine) treat pain?

http://prescription-drug.addictionblog.org/does-suboxone-buprenorphine-treat-pain/

http://prescription-drug.addictionblog.org/is-suboxone-a-narcotic/

3/3/2014, Is Suboxone a narcotic?

By some definitions buprenorphine is a ‘medication’ when used appropriately, and a ‘narcotic’ when diverted or used outside of appropriate medical care.

http://prescription-drug.addictionblog.org/can-you-get-high-on-suboxone/

8/24/2011, Can you get high on Suboxone?

And if buprenorphine and methadone are abused together, the effects of both drugs are enhanced…

Under comments:

Brent said:  Suboxone is only good if used for a short time period 3 months tops. It is very addictive and the withdrawls can be worst than most opiates. I have been on Suboxone for 5 years and have been trying to get off for the past year, will no sucess…

Randy said: I have been on suboxone for 5 yrs now after a 7yr vicodin addiction. What they are saying in the posts about suboxone not being addictive unless snorted or injected are totaly false. Also the withdrawl is worse than any opiate I have ever had withdrawl from. I have tryed to cut down to 1/2 of a 2 mg tab and it is impossible. The withdrawl is over the top. If you need this drug to help you get off opiates by all means use it , but only for a very short time or you will become hopelessly addicted. Life is horrible trying to get off this drug.

http://prescription-drug.addictionblog.org/can-suboxone-be-injected/

3/11/2014, Can Suboxone be injected?

12/22/2014, Are we living in the age of the brain?

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/blogs/philip-ball/are-we-living-in-the-age-of-the-brain

None of this would be disputed by neuroscientists. But it perhaps highlights the distinctions between an understanding of the brain and an understanding of the mind. The implication seems to be that it is hard to develop one while you’re working on the other…

This isn’t just a matter of giving the brain something to do. Some cognitive scientists, such as Antonio Damasio at the University of Southern California and Anil Seth at the University of Sussex, argue that consciousness and brain activity have an explicitly “somatic,” embodied element. They think that emotions are not so much states of the brain as mental representations—indeed, interpretations—of the physiological states of the body. That is reflected in the everyday language of “gut instincts” or “thinking with the heart.”

12/19/2014, Hugs Were the Cure for the Common Cold All Along

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/12/hugs-were-the-cure-for-the-common-cold-all-along.html

“We know that people experiencing ongoing conflicts with others are less able to fight off cold viruses. We also know that people who report having social support are partly protected from the effects of stress on psychological states, such as depression and anxiety,” said Cohen in the release accompanying the new paper, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science.