Addicts will find a way. Buprenorphine is the most abused opioid in Finland. Which by the way has the most youth drug deaths in Europe[1]. Granted it's usually Subutex (just buprenorphine) rather than Suboxone (buprenorphine + naloxone) but there's not much difference unless you're using intravenously because buprenorphine has such a high binding affinity.

I agree that there's a huge problem with opiates and am in favor of legalizing everything, but it's good to realize that buprenorphine is not a magic candy that fixes everything - you're just replacing an addiction to a deadly feel-good opiate with an addiction to a slightly less feel-good opiate with a larger therapeutic index.

[1]: https://www.euronews.com/2023/03/16/why-are-so-many-young-fi...

Isn't the purpose of making opioids available to addicts to allow addicts to "find a way" (i.e. manage their addiction)? We have no easy/effective treatments for such addictions so harm reduction is the best we can hope for.

Yes absolutely, I'm all for giving addicts the help they need. I just don't think haphazardly making it available OTC without a prescription like the GP suggested would be the right decision in the current situation. People already abuse OTC medications with a lot less recreational potential, stuff like whippits and DPH. Adding Suboxone to the mix would, in addition to helping the addicts that want to quit, raise a new generation of buprenorphine addicts.

Despite its miraculous efficacy for addiction treatment it certainly has some recreational potential and the long lasting opioids used for maintenance are a bitch to quit. Many people stay on the stuff for life because while you can taper down it's really, really hard to drop the last bit. While milder than with the fast-acting opioids, the physical withdrawals go on for weeks. With heroin or fentanyl they're over by day 3 or 4 and it's all mental after that.

In my ideal gay luxury space communist world most drugs would be available for anyone after a doctor's consultation where you learn basic harm reduction and such. Currently people abuse OTC medications or buy fentanyl laced stuff of the street to get high even though they're absolute trash for that. Safer options exist.

I suggested making it OTC without a prescription largely due to a couple of practical reasons - many users of illicit drugs who are not "street junkies" want to keep the whole thing hidden for various reasons (social stigma, worries about health insurances, medical discrimination), etc.

Not sure about where you are, but in the countries in EU/UK I've lived, OTC can mean either "behind the counter" (where you must speak with the pharmacist), or "in front of the counter" (you just pick it up and buy it).

Depending on country, different drugs are sold differently.

In Germany and Ireland, to buy normal antihistamines or pretty much any good OTC painkiller, I have to request it and usually get asked some questions, depending on the drug, whereas in the UK I can buy the same medications in Tesco.

I'm also of the view that a lot more drugs should simply be available via the model of informed consent or just "available by asking for them".

Waiting weeks and paying 60 euros for a GP to toss a coin on if they are going to agree with you about a medicine is a nightmare.

Though that may be due to the broken health system here making me wait 4 weeks for a GP appointment so I could get a fucking salbutamol inhaler after my asthma came back, among other things.

Interesting aside, the "mental" addiction can be harder to kick than the physical. Some former opiate and gabapentin users I know have mentioned this - psychological cravings for even years after stopping. Anyone who has ever tried quit nicotine will also know this.

> Interesting aside, the "mental" addiction can be harder to kick than the physical. Some former opiate and gabapentin users I know have mentioned this - psychological cravings for even years after stopping. Anyone who has ever tried quit nicotine will also know this.

Oh yes for sure, didn't mean to make it seem like it wasn't. I was(/am) a poly drug addict from Finland. Buprenorphine and amphetamine were my jam for a couple years. One year of using intravenously daily. It's been years since my last time but I still think about shooting up every now and then. It's a deviously strong urge. But the mental battle doesn't only start after the physical stuff is over: at the beginning they both compound on each other and it's absolutely devastating when you've been awake for two weeks because of the restless legs...

If you don't mind me asking, how did you get into that in the first place? Was it purely recreational? Escapism? Or..?

I first got into opioids at age 16 or so when I found boxes and boxes of tramadol prescribed for my father who had died of cancer some years earlier. Eating them made me feel good, really good. I guess that sparked my love for drugs.

I was a recreational user and managed to keep things under control (except spending all my money) for many years. But in those circles most people are a bad influence on you. Eventually it all just spiraled out of control. It was so easy to keep slipping deeper a little at a time while taking steps in the other direction felt enormously hard.

It's been about 6 years since I last shot up. Everything's going really good now. Granted I'm not sober by AA standards; I still smoke weed, and drink a couple of beers every now and then, and do psychedelics maybe once or twice a year. Whenever I start feeling blue.

TIL about the abuse in Finland. I was aware it was sometimes abused by prisoners, but that's new.

In another comment I went into a bit more detail around ways of dealing with the issue, using Finland's homeless housing policy as part of it.

Its a complex issue that certainly isn't going to be resolved through the criminal system.

Narcan will be available OTC in the US starting later this year.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr...

suboxone can be abused due to the differences in half life's of the components.