There is a balance of risk with any medical intervention, including buprenorphine treatment, where there are societal issues that fall under the domain of law enforcement and social workers.   I am frustrated by the desire of some physicians, particularly those associated with ASAM, to place more emphasis on the societal issues, than on the care of their personal, individual patients.    I can hear those doctors now…. ‘we have a duty to protect society.’   In response, I would say doctors FIRST have a duty to their patients…. NOT to ‘their patients’ as a whole, but to each separate, individual, complicated human being.  Period.

Making things worse, doctors have bought into the foolish media narrative about the dangers of buprenorphine.  I recently heard a doctor say that ‘buprenorphine is the same as heroin, the way people are using it.’     How frustrating that the people who are supposed to be ‘experts’— the people who could serve a role in educating the idiot narrative about ‘getting high from buprenorphine’— know so much less about the medication than their own patients!

Doctors:  How many people die from buprenorphine products?

http://www.rehabs.com/pro-talk-articles/the-buprenorphine-diversion-problem/)

Had to get that off my chest