Laws meant to stop drug abuse promote heroin use

Heroin Addicts Clamor for Scarce Medicine

"The problem, some say, is that Congress has made it hard to get the drug, and health professionals are pressuring the government to expand access.

Available in this country since 2002, buprenorphine is an alternative to methadone, which has been used to treat heroin addiction since the 1960s. Buprenorphine is also used to treat addictions to prescription painkillers like OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin.

"It has been extraordinarily effective in the patients we have given it to," said psychiatrist Dr. Herbert Kleber of Columbia University.

Doctors say buprenorphine is longer-acting than methadone, more difficult to overdose on and easier to withdraw from. Addicts say "bupe" gives them a feeling of clearheadedness they do not get with methadone. Also, they can be treated in the privacy of a doctor's office; methadone, under federal law, is available only at public clinics.

But federal law says individual doctors and medical practices can prescribe buprenorphine to no more than 30 patients at a time — a provision aimed at preventing "prescription mills," where drugs are doled out indiscriminately by doctors trying to make a fast buck.

Krystal's doctor, J. Charles Lentini, said he has a waiting list of 185 addicts — many of whom are continuing to abuse drugs while they wait.

Even more problematic is the restriction on large medical practices. For example, Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest not-for-profit health maintenance organization with 8.2 million members, operates eight medical groups around the country, meaning it can treat only 240 patients at any one time nationwide."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050429/...I0BHNlYwNobA--

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