Pubdate: Sun, 24 Dec 2006
Source: News-Herald, The (Southgate, MI)
Copyright: 2006 Heritage Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.thenewsherald.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4015
Author: Carl Levin
Note: Carl Levin is the senior U.S. senator from Michigan.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/buprenorphine
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

EFFECTIVE HEROIN TREATMENT

'Bup' Offers Great Potential in the Fight Against the Deadly Drug

Heroin abuse plagues many of our communities, bringing drug-related 
crime and violence and tearing families apart. Roughly 1 million 
people in the United States are addicted to heroin, according to the 
Office of National Drug Control Policy.

There are no easy or quick solutions to this epidemic, but effective 
treatment programs can and must play an integral role as we fight 
back. In recent years, a new anti-addiction medicine called 
buprenorphine has revolutionized the way we treat heroin addiction, 
and Congress recently acted to make it more widely available.

One of the difficulties in the fight against drug abuse has been a 
lack of effective treatments. This was especially true for recovering 
heroin users, who for many years depended on methadone, itself an 
addictive drug that was dispensed only in centralized clinics often 
located far from those seeking treatment.

However, in the early 1990s I learned of buprenorphine, widely known 
as "bup," which drastically improves the way we treat heroin 
addiction. Bup functions as a drug "blocker," suppressing the craving 
for heroin and other opiate drugs, including prescription 
painkillers. To learn more, I visited drug treatment centers and 
research labs and worked to foster a national dialogue on addiction 
and treatment.

In 2000, the bipartisan Drug Addiction Treatment Act, which I 
sponsored with a Republican colleague, Sen.  Orrin Hatch of Utah, 
authorized physicians to prescribe and dispense bup in their private 
offices pending approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 
which came in 2002.

DATA permitted physicians to dispense bup if they had received the 
specialized training required under DATA, were able to refer patients 
to counseling and other related services, and agreed to treat no more 
than 30 patients at a time.

This year, I hosted a symposium with Hatch that brought together 
physicians, health policy experts and patients to review the results 
of the first three years of office-based bup treatment.

Overwhelmingly, experts agreed that bup has successfully helped many 
people rehabilitate their lives. A survey required by DATA and 
completed by the Department of Health and Human Services found that 
bup has been effective and well-received among patients, shown 
minimal adverse effects and increased the availability of 
medication-assisted treatment programs.

Some of the most dramatic portions of the symposium came during the 
testimony from patients whose lives have turned around since being 
introduced to bup.

One of these patients was a college student in Boston who spent more 
than three years in the grips of heroin addiction. During that time, 
she underwent methadone detox 10 times- 10!- before bup helped her to 
feel "normal for the first time in three and a half years." She 
returned to school a short time later, has been on the dean's list 
ever since and is on track to graduate this spring.

The Senate symposium also highlighted a troublesome limitation on the 
use of bup. Too many physicians have been forced to deny treatment to 
potential patients because they are already at the 30-patient limit.

This was a tragic and arbitrary limitation for thousands of Americans 
who could benefit from bup, so Congress recently passed an amendment 
I authored with Senator Hatch to increase the limit to 100 patients 
per physician. The president is expected to sign it into law this year.

With this important change, which will more than triple the number of 
patients with access to bup in their physicians' offices, we are 
closer to fully realizing the lifesaving, family-saving and 
community-saving potential of bup.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake