Do you think it's the Subutex and Methodone manufacturers using legal muscle since they can't patent and monopolize this alternative? Reckitt Benckiser, maker of Suboxone has fought hard against generics being available.
I will save my criticism of the moral implication of such a position because the English language doesn't provide me enough words to express it.
Think if Reckitt had any sway they'd want loosening of the restrictions on doctors to prescribe suboxone. Currently only 10,000 of the 800,000 doctors in the USA are prescribing suboxone - wait lists are long and the per-doctor cap is rising very slowly.
Yeah, those restrictions are a completely insufficient response to the growing problems.
I had a friend fighting heroin addiction live on my couch for a year while I tried using my money and time to help him through.
The biggest problems (now we are getting off topic) are
* lack of recovery groups for atheists. The conventional twelve step programs claim they'll work for atheists but the act of faith plays such a crucial and fundamental role, that someone who is faithless really won't work in the program.
* an unspoken internal conflict of process. Institutions of rehab strongly disagree on methodology and there's this culture where most seem to have one elaborate and very specific process. Using multiple resources can be mutually exclusive and impossible.
* rehab in general is structured terribly. The reality is that someone serious about recovery ends up living with a bunch of strangers who may not be. It's like a zombie movie, one bad apple can spoil the bunch. There has to be a better way.
* a lack of reliable or convenient access to medication. These people know how to get street drugs. When they have to travel 30 miles and show up between 6 and 7:30 am to get methadone while heroin is an SMS away and gets delivered, there's a problem.
I will save my criticism of the moral implication of such a position because the English language doesn't provide me enough words to express it.