There was a prominent doctor here in Topeka who was fired from the hospital for keeping folks on Suboxone. The idea of course is that you can have a nice gentle

There was a prominent doctor here in Topeka who was fired from the hospital for keeping folks on Suboxone. The idea of course is that you can have a nice gentle taper, same with methadone, but the reality is you can't "beat" withdrawal. So people stay on it. The euphoria from these drugs doesn't come close to heroin, so people are continually going back and forth. There's an added danger because buprenorphine binds tighter that if it's in your system it takes a lot more dope to kick the buprenorphine off the receptors, so lots of overdoses. This, I believe, is the reality. Of course Suboxone and methadone are so much safer to use than street heroin. And doctors will help those who want to, to taper. I just don't think that describes most sub/methadone users. I don't think the issue is a lack of safer alternatives. It's whatever is driving the person to seek out the effects produced by those drugs in the first place.