Will buprenorphine and probuphine be the end to opioid addiction?

Headlines, both regionally and nationally are full of the message: Opioid addiction is sweeping the country and its out of control. With the death of musical artist Prince of an opioid overdose, the stigma of the addiction to strong prescription pain pills has been erased. It isn't a poor person's problem, it isn't an unemployed person's problem, it isn't a metropolitan problem. It is a problem in South Lake Tahoe, Reno, the west and the whole country.

In Reno, car dealership manager Richard "Richie" West II is the alleged leader of an opioid distribution ring that put an estimated $8 million worth of drugs out on the street in more than two years, up to 5,000 pills a day.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost two million Americans abused or were dependent on prescription opioids in 2014. More than 1,000 people every day are treated in the emergency department for misusing prescription opioids.

Not only is the U.S. in the midst of an opioid abuse epidemic, it is also in the midst of an opioid overdose epidemic.

There were 18,893 deaths involving prescription opioids in the country in 2014, up 16% from 2013, according to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Deaths involving synthetic opioids (like fentanyl) increased by 79% from 2013-2014. On the lake side of El Dorado County, there has been one death attributed to overdose of prescription pills in the first five months of 2016. In that case there was Oxymorphone, Hydromorphone, Hydrocodone, Sertraline (Zoloft), Cyclobenzaprine (Flexeril), and Acetaminophen (Tylenol) all in the victim's blood at the time of death.

Opioid addiction isn't a moral or mental weakness. It's a chronic medical condition that results from changes in the brain in susceptible people according to WebMD. Once narcotic addiction has developed, escaping the cycle of detox and relapse is typically a long-term process.

There are several different forms of treatment, including in-patient treatment facilities (of which there are none in Lake Tahoe), counseling and medication.

For 14 years, buprenorphine has been used to treat prescription pain pill addiction, but with news out of Washington this week, it may become more successful in ending a person's addiction to opioids.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Probuphine, an implant that contains the opioid addiction treatment buprenorphine. Probuphine consists of four small stick-like implants that are inserted in the upper arm, during a doctor’s visit that typically lasts less than 15 minutes. The implant remains in the arm for six months, and is removed by the doctor, according to a story by CNBC.

“Until today, buprenorphine for the treatment of opioid dependence was only approved as a pill or a film placed under the tongue or on the inside of a person’s cheek until it dissolved," said the FDA in a press release. "While effective, a pill or film may be lost, forgotten or stolen. However, as an implant, Probuphine provides a new treatment option for people in recovery who may value the unique benefits of a six-month implant compared to other forms of buprenorphine, such as the possibility of improved patient convenience from not needing to take medication on a daily basis.”

In another move to help the opioid crisis, a group of senators is urging the Department of Health and Human Services to raise the number of patients a doctor can treat with the opioid addiction medication buprenorphine to 500. As it stands right now, a doctor can only treat 30 people in the first year they are certified to prescribe the drug, and 100 in subsequent years.

With two million Americans addicted, one doctor treating 30 people at a time wouldn't even put a dent in the problem.

“We don’t restrict doctors from prescribing life-saving medication for any other medical condition, so it makes no sense to limit medication-assisted therapies for those suffering from the disease of opioid addiction,” Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat out of Massassachusetts said in a press release. “The current artificial caps on treatment not only hurt access, but they also reinforce the stigma that accessing treatment for substance use disorders should be different than for any other chronic illness.”