People have been observing the growth of drug addiction, and most young people are suffering from this addiction to drugs like heroin and opioids.
The substance primarily used to treat opioid drug addiction is a mixture of two compounds: buprenorphine, and naloxone, commonly known as Suboxone.
Other than treating opioid addiction, it has several uses and is commonly used to treat severe or persistent pain.
What is Suboxone?
Suboxone is a prescribed medication designed to relieve withdrawal from opioids and desires for drugs. If you are on order for Suboxone. Suboxone can also be a painkiller for those who don’t suffer from opioid addiction. You are taking this drug to treat an opioid dependence disorder.
Suboxone is a mixture of two ingredients, and here are these substances.
- Buprenorphine: is a drug that reduces cravings and lessens physical discomfort that is associated with withdrawal from opioids.
- Naloxone: is a drug used that blocks the possibility of misuse. In excess, this ingredient will hinder the effects of your high.
As we have mentioned above, the company has stopped making Suboxone as pills used by people for abuse, but there are some alternatives to it.
- Subutex (buprenorphine tablets)
- buprenorphine or naloxone (generic pills)
- Zubsolv (buprenorphine or naloxone tablets)
Can you smoke Suboxone?
The simple answer to this question is no. You can not smoke Suboxone because companies have designed Suboxone for oral intake, not for smoking, and it comes in many forms, including pill patches, films, and injectables.
No one will deny its potential to smoke, so it is possible(crush and vaporise) to smoke Suboxone when you get Suboxone in pill form. However, the manufacturers stopped Suboxone production in pills to stop smokers from taking Suboxone in 2012.
Anyone who plans to use Suboxone can safely smoke the tablet. However, smoking Suboxone does not lead to much high.
Basically, Suboxone is designed to administer in various ways, and here are the following ways to use Suboxone.
Ways to take Suboxone
- Sublingually (placement of drug under the tongue)
- Implant
- Skin Patch
- Pill
- Injection
You might be surprised to hear that people use Suboxone as a way of enjoyment, or you can say people use it as a replacement for heroin and drugs related substances.
A large number of people inject or smoke and even abuse Suboxone in different ways.
People are seeking pleasure or using Suboxone as a pleasure-seeking element like the same opioid receptor.
It results in high and lasts for a longer time, but with low intensity. In addition, take more Suboxone.
Subsequently, they will reach a level where taking it in high doses will not affect them, and here the question is raised: can we smoke Suboxone?
How to take Suboxone?
People use Suboxone for smoking and inhaling, and it has potential. Currently, Suboxone is available in sublingual films after the manufacturer stopped producing pills of Suboxone.
It is possible to smoke sublingual films, but it is challenging to crush and vaporise them.
Previously people crushed Suboxone pills and made powder from them, then placed that powder on foil(a very thin metal sheet). After that, they heat it, which changes into vapour form, then smoke it through the straw.
Another form of Suboxone that is also vulnerable to abuse is strip, people heat liquid of Suboxone and inhale its vapours, but this process cannot go high.
Abuse of Suboxone
If you are using Suboxone in its original state, it would not be abused, but when you use Suboxone by changing its original condition.
Suboxone is a mixture of Buprenorphine and Naloxone, and its goal is to make an opioid of low dose that binds to opioid receptors and blocks. It allows the patient to get rid of their addiction to opioids.
Buprenorphine is an opioid that is semi-synthetically produced from thebaine. It is a naturally occurring alkaloid from the poppy of opium. It is similar to heroin, morphine, or codeine. Naloxone is available as a brand of Narcan and is a competitor that obstructs the consequences of opioids.
Suboxone is intended to act on the opioid receptors of the brain through buprenorphine and the addition of a cap of naloxone. This is to limit the use and the risk of becoming high.
When Naloxone is used in a mixture with buprenorphine, it remains inactive. Still, if someone crushes or dissolves it or even changes its original state, it activates and generates a barrier to buprenorphine working.
There are different side effects of injecting Suboxone
- Anxiety
- Insomnia
- Excess Sweating
- Muscle Aches
- Excess tear formation
- Abdominal Cramping
- Dilated Pupils
- Runny Nose
- Diarrhoea
- Nausea
Many people are dehydrated and severely dehydrated due to diarrhoea, sweating, and vomiting. There is also the possibility of being violent due to anxiety and hyperactivity.
Conclusion
Most of the information related to suboxone smoking has been revealed here in this article, and Suboxone snorting is also an abusive Suboxone. Complications associated with snorting or smoking Suboxone are mostly the same and are enlisted in abusing drugs.
Note: Not be confused with Subutex snorting wtith Suboxone snorting.
PS: Content was revised by different experts from following institutions.
- By a Serving Doctor at Agha Khan: https://www.aku.edu/research/Pages/home.aspx
- Medical Student at Ohio State University: https://www.ohio.edu/medicine/research/org/students
- Research Student at UC Health : https://www.uchealth.com/university-of-cincinnati-medical-center/
