In Johnson City, Tennessee, just over the Virginia border—where several of the nation’s top buprenorphine prescribers have offices—one cash-only prescriber admitted as much in a public forum, saying, “We give ’em enough so they can sell it and stay in treatment,” Melton recalled. Buprenorphine is the third-most-diverted opioid in the country, after oxycodone and hydrocodone.
