(The Atlantic) – As of 2021, about one in five patients struggling with opioid-use disorder is taking this or other medications for treating addiction. One of the most effective tools for defusing a crisis that in recent years has killed more than 80,000 people annually is going unused.

Underpinning this failure is a quiet conviction among doctors and patients alike that taking buprenorphine doesn’t count as success—that people who use drugs to recover from drug use are still addicts, the sobriety they achieve is fake, and the drugs saving their lives could spark the next wave of the opioid epidemic. At the same time, the drugs that have made addiction even more deadly—synthetic opioids such as fentanyl—are making buprenorphine more complicated to use. As a result, the window in the U.S. for this treatment to fulfill its greatest promise is nearly closed. (Read More)