Use and Abuse

There is almost always two sides to a story, and this letter from Dr Soo published in Today today tells 'the other side' of the Subutex story:


Drug for heroin dependence can turn lives around
Letter from Dr Soo Ing Choong

I am a general practitioner and have worked to improve the health of my patients for more than 18 years.

Heroin addiction is a national problem. In the same way that people with other mental disorders such as schizophrenia or depression need medication, so do those with heroin dependence.

The health authorities recognised the usefulness of Subutex in treating heroin dependent patients, and approved its use in 2002. Since then, several Ministry of Health guidelines have trained doctors like myself in the proper use of this medication, and effectively stopped doctor-hopping by registering patients under the Cards system (Central Addictions Registry for Drugs Singapore).

Over the year, there have been many reports of people abusing Subutex — the only approved and effective medication for the treatment of heroin dependence. And with every negative media article, dozens of success stories go untold.

For every case of abuse of this medication, there are numerous patients who can return to work and contribute to society, re-establish family relationships and raise their children with love, as they try to break free from their dependence.

I have treated a large number of patients who have turned their loves around to become contributing members of society with the help of this medication. The public needs to understand that heroin dependence is a disease that should be treated like every other.


We've discussed this problem previously, and the subject continues to make the news and medical literature (click here to see the scale of the problem, here to find out about an alternative to Subutex, and here to look at some gross pictures of limbs turned gangrenous from Subutex abuse).

My own suspicion is that even with tighter regulation or even total banning, Subutex-abuse will continue to be a problem as long as it is manufactured, whether legitimately or illegally, if it indeed gives 'even more high' than heroin.

The genie is, as it were, already out of the bottle.