I mentioned the other day that opioid use is now the biggest threat to teenagers and young adults. Consider the following facts about buprenorphine (suboxone), a relatively new treatment for opioid-addicted people.
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 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.
There are some serious problems with suboxone, but at least the drug was created in an effort to help opioid-dependent people from continuing to use heroin and other powerful prescription drugs that can kill them or lead them to a life of dissolution and crime.
Consider that it is costing Medicaid programs almost $300 million a year just for this one strategy of treating opioid addiction. Consider the magnitude of the problem if suboxone is generating over $1.5 billion in sales annually. That the drug is outselling Viagra is a pretty strong indicator of how how widespread the opioid problem has become.
Yet, how often do you hear anyone talk openly about this?
