Dr. Herbert Kleber's HuffPost Interview

January 27, 2015
Blurb
One 22-year-old woman addicted to Percocet told researchers in that 2011 report that the stigma of medical treatment for addiction motivated her to buy buprenorphine on the black market. “I wanted to try to do it myself because at first I didn’t want my family to know that I was on [pain pills],” she said. “So if I could get off of them without making it obvious, like by going to treatment and stuff, then I would.”...
Dr. Herbert Kleber, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute’s Division on Substance Abuse, argues that the robust black market is a sign that the benefit of the medication outweighs the risk. “There is no medication without risk. People die every year from aspirin. People have penicillin allergies,” he said.
Read more:  http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/dying-to-be-free-heroin-treatment