You won't find this advertised on the state tourism board's website, but it is a well-known fact that New Jersey has some of the purest street heroin in the nation. It is a popular choice among local drug users.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration reported in 2008 that heroin use among New Jersey's 18-25 population is more than twice the national average. Many doctors and addicts are relying on Suboxone – a narcotic that can be taken at home to treat the addictions caused by heroin and other opiates – as a long term solution for the addictions these drugs cause. I disagree.

I believe Suboxone encourages patients to continue thinking and acting like an addict long after they are out of recovery.

With more than 500 Suboxone prescribing doctors in the Garden State, we have to make sure we don't turn one addiction epidemic into another.

I do not mean to criticize Suboxone as a detoxification medication. In fact, we use it regularly at Sunrise Detox, in Stirling, to control opiate addiction. The "cold turkey" approach to treating withdrawal is too dangerous and the pain of the symptoms can make it psychologically challenging for a patient to stay in the facility and complete the process. However, it is not an ideal solution for long-term treatment.

Picture a 35-year-old heroin addict who is missing his commuter train to Manhattan, stealing from his children and running around on his wife. He goes to one of these clinics and the doctor puts him on a Suboxone maintenance program.

Six months down the road, he isn't stealing from his kids' piggy bank, he's showing up to work and he's a reliable husband, but he is still dependant on Suboxone. Is he in recovery?

I say no. This man is still dependant on a narcotic. As a friend of mine said about people on Suboxone maintenance programs – they may be functioning in society, but they're not living in it.

Here in New Jersey, I see more and more evidence that Suboxone is headed down the road of Methadone. And as a former drug addict who was on the Methadone program for two years, I can truly say it did not help my recovery at all. In fact, it enhanced my addiction. It gave me a legal way to get high.

Suboxone is a tremendous tool we have in our arsenal to make the detoxification process as tolerable as possible. It allows our patients to leave Sunrise with virtually no withdrawal symptoms.

But don't view Suboxone as a long-term treatment. We do not write prescriptions for Suboxone for our patients when they leave Sunrise Detox. Patients who medicate with large doses of synthetic opiates are no better off than when they first checked in for treatment.

The withdrawal symptoms are minimal for short-term Suboxone use, but they can grow to be quite painful after long-term use.

The two questions I'd like to ask those health professions in favor of Suboxone maintenance is: What happens when a patient needs detox for his Suboxone addiction? Aren't we just switching seats on the Titanic?

Ira Levy is a detoxification expert at Sunrise Detox, a private luxury detoxification center with a location in Stirling, New Jersey. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 561-533-0074.

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written by Richard Butler, February 17, 2010

i couldn't agree more with this author! lets get off drugs for the betterment of all

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Memer, BOD, National Alliance for Medication Assisted Recovery
written by J.R. Neuberger, February 18, 2010

Mr. Levy, who is NOT a doctor, seems to want to rewrite the research of the past 50 years to suit his obvious financial interest in pushing the "abstinance only" philosophy of addiction recovery, as his position with Sunrise Detox would attest. The shame in that is that he is in the proces putting the very lives of many suffering addicts at risk. Maintenance therapies with methadone and now suboxone have been proven to be the MOST effective treatments for keeping long-term addicts in recovery. And, Mr. Levy, it IS recovery. You have no province over the use of that term and are not the authority who determines who is and who is not in recovery.

Levy's position points up, also, his complete lack of knowledge concerning an opioid addiction's long term effects on the brain chemistry of the abuser. Most suffer irreparable damage to the endorphin system, damage that does not heal with abstinance. The effect of this endorphin imbalance can be constant depression with accompanying inability to experience feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment with resultant life-threatening relapse being the norm rather than exception. Endorphin replacement therapy accomplished through the use of maintenance treatment utilizing the medicines Levy disarages are the "gold stanard" for controlling this chronic condition, as determed by our own U.S. National Institutes of Health, an authority with much more substance than Levy any objective observer would attest, I believe..

People in general, and suffering addicts in particular, would be better served by disregarding completely the rantings of this self-professed expert and rely on their own investigations into these life saving treatments. Information with the research to back it up is widely available online through the CSAT and SAMHSA websites of our National Institues of Health. 50 years of research and effective usage say that Levy is banging a drum only to increase the ring of the cash register that feeds him, not with the interests of suffering addicts in mind. He's of the "I did it so anyone can" group, a group whose only effect is to, again, put people's lives at risk to hear the banging of their own drum. I'd stick with the research and the RESULTS.
J.R. Neuberger
National Alliance for Medication Assisted Recovery

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