Suboxone diversion?

A recent study looking at diversion of buprenorphine finds that:

While 9% reported recent street-obtained buprenorphine use, only a small minority reported using buprenorphine to get high, with the majority reporting use to manage withdrawal symptoms.

The use of street-obtained buprenorphine primarily to avoid withdrawal fits with Dawn Farm’s experience, though the percentage would be much higher than 9%.

We know that the experience in Europe has been different. For example, a 5 year study there found:

In 2007, 60.2% of the respondents claimed heroin or morphine as their first injected drug. This percentage had declined to 51.3% in 2010, but in contrast the incidence of buprenorphine as the first injected or abused drug by the study population increased from 30.5% (2007) to 44.4% (2010).

Why the difference? Well, a few possibilities come to mind:

That Europe adopted the drug earlier than the US.
That the brand most widely used in the U.S. includes naloxone, which is less desirable as a street-obtained drug.
That the American study was done in 2008, and things have changed rapidly since then.

The big question is whether we’ll see the kind of misuse that Europe has seen.

[Hat tip: Substance Matters]