Maryland health officials told state lawmakers yesterday that they were taking steps to minimize possible abuse of the addiction treatment buprenorphine as they spend millions to expand its availability.
While insisting that misuse is currently not a serious problem, they outlined precautions in an appearance before a House of Delegates committee. These include screening for buprenorphine in overdose deaths, coordinating with police to monitor street sales and supporting a bill that would call for monitoring prescription drugs, including buprenorphine.
"The benefits of treating opioid addiction are enormous," John M. Colmers, secretary of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, told the Health and Government Operations Committee. "There are still risks associated with buprenorphine, but they have to be weighed and measured against the benefits. In all three of those areas, we look forward to making progress."
The hearing came on the day that the Baltimore City Health Department released a report on overdose deaths going back 12 years. It confirmed the first known death in Maryland associated partly with buprenorphine, and noted that deaths in the city linked to heroin have fallen while those involving the heroin substitute methadone have surged.
A 40-year-old woman died in Baltimore on May 11, 2007, from "narcotic intoxication (methadone and buprenorphine) and cocaine use," according to medical examiner's office records.
The medical examiner's office declined yesterday to release the woman's name or provide other details of her death.
Methadone was linked to 60 deaths between January and September last year. Heroin was present in 137 fatal cases during that time, though officials said they could not determine the precise role either drug played in causing deaths.
A three-day series in The Sun last month described how buprenorphine, prescribed as Suboxone for addiction treatment, is being sold by patients on the street. Addicts also are injecting and snorting the narcotic, according to health officials in several states and research from the drug's manufacturer.
Several health officials -- including the married couple of Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, Baltimore's health commissioner, and Dr. Yngvild Olsen, Harford County's deputy medical officer -- told officials that addicts using the drug on the street mostly say they do so to avoid withdrawal, not to get high.
