This drug could help end the opioid crisis
It’s easy for doctors to prescribe opioids for pain — but they need a waiver to prescribe a drug to treat opioid addiction
America’s battle against opioid addiction needs to be fought on both the supply and demand fronts, everyone agrees. It’s important to get doctors to stop prescribing too many opioids, to crack down on importation of heroin and fentanyl, and to hold pharmaceutical companies to account for irresponsible marketing practices. But it is at least as essential to make sure that doctors are able to use every tool at their disposal to help the more than 2-million people already addicted to the drugs to recover. Because over-use of opioids causes changes in brain structure and function, the best way to help sufferers is with medications — notably buprenorphine, a particularly effective medicine for opioid-use disorder. Most sufferers lack access to this treatment. Many more doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants should be trained to provide it. Buprenorphine could be transformative in the treatment of addiction. It reduces craving because it’s an opioid, but it acts differently...
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