BARRIERS TO PROVIDING BUPRENORPHINE:

a Baltimore Sun headline on 20 June summed up the problem succinctly: "A drug-war setback - Red tape, doctors say, cuts buprenorphine prescriptions" The article reports on barriers to providing buprenorphine, as perceived by 17 physicians in the Baltimore area who were surveyed. Of course, there are vastly more physicians for whom barriers are irrelevant for the simple reason that they never sought to obtain the "waiver" needed to be allowed to prescribe buprenorphine. All in all a depressing situation for those who had hoped that buprenorphine would help narrow the unconscionable gap between need for and availability of opiate-agonist maintenance treatment. Full story:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.bupe20jun20,0,6881220.story?coll=bal-local-headlines