Buprenorphine Prescriptions Fell 11% in Rhode Island Since 2022

Medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder became easier to prescribe in 2023 when Congress eliminated the federal waiver requirement for buprenorphine.

New surveillance data from Rhode Island shows dispensing went the other direction anyway. Buprenorphine prescriptions for opioid use disorder dispensed to Rhode Island residents fell 11 percent between 2022 and 2025, from 81,065 to 72,025.

The number of people receiving them fell 8 percent, from 7,359 to 6,756. The findings come from an analysis of Rhode Island Prescription Drug Monitoring Program records published in the August 2026 Rhode Island Medical Journal by researchers at the Rhode Island Department of Health.

Why Medication-Assisted Treatment Data Matters in Detox

Buprenorphine is a partial opioid agonist. It occupies opioid receptors strongly enough to relieve withdrawal symptoms and reduce cravings without producing the effects of a full agonist, and it carries a ceiling effect that lowers overdose risk compared with methadone.

In practice that makes it central to both withdrawal management and long-term medication-assisted treatment. A person may start it during a supervised detox and continue it for years.

Tracking whether prescriptions are reaching people is one of the few available proxies for whether medication-assisted treatment is reaching people.

What the Numbers Show

Across the four years, the study counted 302,241 buprenorphine prescriptions for opioid use disorder dispensed to 10,534 unique individuals.

Film formulations accounted for 67 percent of those prescriptions, tablets 31 percent, and injections 2 percent. Combination products pairing buprenorphine with naloxone made up 88 percent.

Among people receiving buprenorphine for opioid use disorder, 62 percent were male and 52 percent were between 35 and 54 years old.

Opioid analgesic dispensing also declined, falling 6 percent from 401,165 prescriptions in 2022 to 375,129 in 2025, with a 5 percent decline in the number of individuals.

High-risk prescribing fell further. Individuals dispensed a daily dose of at least 90 morphine milligram equivalents dropped 15 percent, from 5,743 to 4,889.

Naloxone dispensing through retail pharmacies fell 28 percent, from 14,501 prescriptions in 2022 to 10,470 in 2025. Stimulant prescriptions moved the opposite way, rising 16 percent from 474,342 to 548,445, with a 19 percent increase in the number of people receiving them.

The Caveat That Changes the Reading

The authors are direct about a limitation that matters for interpreting the buprenorphine decline. Long-acting injectable buprenorphine products are administered in clinical offices rather than dispensed at retail pharmacies, and prescriptions filled and administered through opioid treatment programs are not captured in the monitoring program at all.

The authors note this may have caused buprenorphine prescriptions to be underestimated, and that long-acting injectables are becoming more popular because of convenience and lower diversion risk.

In other words, some portion of the apparent decline may reflect care shifting to settings the data cannot see rather than fewer people receiving treatment.

The authors also raise the possibility that reduced buprenorphine dispensing tracks reduced opioid use or treatment saturation in the state population.

The same limitation applies to naloxone. Over-the-counter naloxone became available in March 2023, and the authors point to that shift, community distribution programs, and declining overdose numbers as likely contributors to fewer pharmacy dispensations.

Where Stimulants Fit

The rise in stimulant prescriptions runs alongside a documented shortage of immediate-release amphetamine formulations that began in 2022.

The authors recommend that prescribers continue educating patients about cardiac and hypertensive effects, the risk of stimulant use disorder, and symptoms of overamping, and call for research on emergency department visits related to stimulant overamping.

There is no FDA-approved medication for stimulant use disorder, which makes this trend a different clinical problem than opioid dependence.

Finding Medical Detox

If you are looking at detox for yourself or someone else, ask a program directly whether buprenorphine, methadone, or naltrexone can be started during withdrawal management and continued afterward, and whether a prescriber is available on site. Ask what happens on discharge day, since the handoff is where people most often fall out of care.

Never attempt alcohol or benzodiazepine detox without medical supervision. Both carry a risk of seizures and death. Detox.com lists medically supervised detox programs by location, level of care and insurance accepted. Call 800-996-6135(Sponsored) to get in contact with a treatment specialist today.