Who Is the Real Addict?
by Joe Pulcinella
From Wired News:
Buprenorphine could end heroin addiction, curb disease, and cut crime. But bureaucrats, doctors, and much of the treatment industry are just saying no. A case study in why the best technology doesn't always win.
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After bupe had been on the market a year, the law was amended to permit methadone clinics to prescribe it, but only under the same rules used for methadone (one dose per visit), which erases one of bupe's major advantages - that you don't have to schlep to a clinic every day. Meanwhile, many methadone providers have remained openly skeptical of the new med, fearing that it will further stigmatize methadone, or siphon off their most stable patients. The government reimburses methadone programs for the number of patients they oversee, not for the specific services they provide, so the payment for a stable patient who takes a dose and goes to work subsidizes treatment for more fragile clients with multiple addictions, mental illness, housing and unemployment issues, and more.
Seems like the government has gotten the clinics addicted...to taxpayer largess.