It sounds almost too devilish to be true, until you consider the source. Only large pharmaceutical companies with no interest other than fattening their pockets would propose treating prescription drug addiction with another prescription drug. And now Swedish drugmaker Orexo AB has the green light from the FDA to begin selling their Big Pharma pill solution in the U.S. to combat opioid addition.

New Orexo Drug Approved for Opioid Addiction

According to Reuters, the drug Zubsolv is designed to treat addiction to prescription opioids like codeine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl and methadone (which is ironically the prescription solution for heroin addiction). Together, these drugs are responsible for about 75 percent of prescription drug overdoses each year. They are all highly addictive, and they were all created, marketed and “sold” to the American people by Big Pharma.

Zubsolv combines two drugs, buprenorphine and naloxone. It dissolves under the tongue and has a delightful menthol flavor, But it isn’t the first drug of its kind—Subutex and Suboxone are also designed to treat such addictions.

Orexo says their drug is needed because opioid addiction affects around 5 million people in the U.S. Also, they say, only about 20 percent of those addicts receive treatment. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that 100 people die every day in the U.S. from drug overdose, with prescription painkiller use being a serious offender. They are hoping for upwards of $500 million in sales.

Prescription drug addiction is serious. These drugs are designed to lessen pain, but are often prescribed with little regard to the risks they pose. A car accident, with injuries that may be treated with far less addictive (and even natural) treatments can easily result in an opioid addiction when your doctor freely doles out oxycodone prescriptions, for instance.

The prescription addiction epidemic has led to the creation of mass prescription databases, where your pharmaceutical habits are tracked by doctors and pharmacists alike in many states. The legal crack-down has made it difficult for many to obtain the drugs they are addicted to. In an effort to lessen the wave of prescription opiate addiction, the legal system has pushed many already-addicted people to a cheaper, easier to score opiate high—heroin.

Make no mistake, this drug problem is one created and sustained by Big Pharma. So, it only makes sense—in a world where health is seen as something you get from a pill—that you should treat addiction to pharmaceuticals with pharmaceuticals.

Additional Sources:

BloomBerg