Recently they started the "suboxone program" inside Michigan prisons. Suboxone is a partial opiate based drug used to help people wing off of heroin. In some really bad cases it is used as a replacement therapy. That means that there are people out there who are so deep in to addiction and they have suffered and lost everything and they just can't stop. They are going to die. In those cases it is sometimes appropriate to put someone on suboxone indefinitely because it is just safer than shooting heroin and fentanyl.
I am in a unit with around 170 other inmates. There are now about 30 of them on suboxone. They call them out in the morning and sit them in chairs, they put smocks over them so that their hands are covered, then the nurse dumps the crushed up suboxone in to their mouths and then they sit there for about 10 minutes while it dissolves and then after a mouth check they leave. They do this every single morning. The guys that do this now have a physical addiction to suboxone. If they were to stop then they would have the same withdrawal symptoms as they would if they where coming off of heroin. I have withdrawn off of both so I speak from experience.
The issue is this: you have inmates who have been in here for years and have not used heroin in as long and then they get on suboxone a few months before they go home and all that does is insure that they are actively addicted and using when they leave, it does not make sense to me?
Then you have all these young guys who have never even used heroin or even had a serious addiction history and they are signing up for the program so they can get high everyday. This is the first time they have ever had a real opiate addiction and it´s being supplied by the prison? They are purposefully turning inmates in to active addicts. What is likely to happen when you send an inmate home with an addiction to opiates and a 30 day supply to get him started? I want to think that they mean well and that they are following some form of science but it´s really hard when the their philosophy is so obviously harmful with no rational reasoning behind it.
I have been an addict my whole life and if I hadn't put so much work in and if I wasn't so serious about my sobriety it would be easy for me to be sitting in that chair each morning with that smock around me and my head tilted back waiting for the nurse to dumb my daily dose in to my mouth. I will be completely honest, when they first started the program I went through a lot of mental anguish and fought off powerful temptations. My mind tried every trick in the book to convince me to join the program. I will never understand why they are taking people who have been sober for years and purposefully addicting them to a substance and then supply that substance to them daily? Am I missing something? Is there an angle that I have a blind spot to and I am just not seeing? Is there another legitimate perspective that I am closed off to?
Believe me, my mind is open to all possibilities, I am searching myself to make sure that I don't have biases or preconceived ideas that keep me from seeing this clearly. I feel like I am highly qualified to give my opinion on this subject. What drives me crazy the most is that I can't figure out why they are doing it? Is there someone reading this that sees it differently? Who notices a flaw in my thinking? Someone who has a different view on the subject? I would be open and appreciative to anything you might have to say?
I wish that I didn't care but it´s difficult watching these young guys go down there every morning to get high, watching them throughout the day laughing and loving the way they feel, but them not knowing where it leads to. Not knowing the misery ahead. When they leave here their need for that opiate they are using everyday goes with them. It may be a drug used to get off of heroin, but they are basically using it to get on heroin. They are doing it in reverse. These guys that never had a heroin addiction, when they get out and the suboxone isn't working like it was when they started it. When they stop getting that euphoric warm feeling it gives you, what will they do? They will do more and more and then go to something stronger. It wasn't meant to be used this way. These kids are coming to prison for stealing and then convincing the prison they need suboxone just because it´s available, then they are leaving prison as addicts with active addictions and a supply to "get them through" until they can get something out there. I'm not trying to hate on anyone or to judge, my heart just hurts with what I see and my brain doesn´t understand it?????
Add comment
Comments