I was prescribed suboxone for about 8 months, and even though I dont think it's a scam, I really dislike the idea of the drug itself. It does what it's supposed to do, but at the end of the day, you are still addicted to opiates/opiods (buprenorphine). I was cut off suddenly when I was taking a strip and a half a day, but I was already so mentally finished with opiates and the pain they caused, so i decided to just deal with the withdrawals. It was like withdrawing from dope, except it lasted 5 WEEKS for me. It was like an opiate withdrawal that had the length of a benzo withdrawal. After getting off of it, I had crippling depression for about a year afterwards.

To me, suboxone is a replacement drug for heroin, except your drug dealer is your pharmacy, so as long as you have a prescription, You wont be going through withdrawals. To me, it would be comparable to a pharmacy prescribing me a half gram of extended release heroin a day if my health insurance covered it.

Once again, I think it has helped plenty of people with their lives, but the fact is, if you are taking an opiate that has an exponentially longer half life than heroin ( Heroins half life is under 60 Minutes while buprenorphine is 22-48 hours.), it is going to satisfy your cravings for opiates for a much longer time than a shot of dope is. Basically, if your opiate receptors are being agonized for a much longer time, You wont feel cravings for opiates because your receptors are already blowing out feel good chemicals.

Basically, I feel like it is prescribed by big pharma to keep people addicted to opiates, when they want to stop using the same opiates the Pharma company was prescribing in the first place. They are still getting money from you, because they know you are addicted to suboxone, just as you were addicted to oxy's/dope/whatever.