Street-Obtained Buprenorphine: Drug of Abuse, or Proof of Limited Access?

In a recent article from the journal Addictive Behaviors, researchers discovered that buprenorphine was rarely, if ever, used by IV drug users to get high. In fact, the vast majority of people who reported acquiring the medication from an illicit source did so with the expressed purpose of avoiding withdrawal symptoms. This seems to contradict the common misconception that heroin users "get high" on Suboxone, therefore we should promote abstinence-based treatment. To the contrary, studies like this one could be interpreted as evidence there is not enough access to these medications - if there were, people wouldn't be forced to seek the drugs from street dealers or friends.
Interested to hear your take on the subject.

Below is a table from study. You can read the abstract here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460313002232

Table 2. Knowledge and Use of Buprenorphine among 602 Injection Drug Users in Baltimore, Maryland.

	Buprenorphine N (%)	Suboxone N (%)	Subutex N (%)	Buprenex N (%)	Any N (%)
Ever heard of drug	537 (89)	355 (59)	52 (9)	68 (11)	541 (90)
Seen sold on street	430 (71)	232 (39)	13 (2)	18 (3)	446 (74)
Ever used	246 (41)	112 (19)	12 (2)	9 (1)	273 (45)
Usual sourcea Doctor Friend Street	124 (50) 32 (13) 55 (22)	71 (63) 8 (7) 18 (16)	9 (75) 1 (8) 1 (8)	6 (67) 2 (22) 0	152 (56) 35 (13) 64 (23)
Used last 3 months	73 (12)	50 (8)	4 (1)	1 (< 1)	95 (16)
Used last 30 days	47 (8)	35 (6)	3 (< 1)	1 (< 1)	69 (11)
year 1stused (median)	2005	2006	2006	2003	2005
Ever used to get high	26 (4)	10 (2)	2 (< 1)	1 (< 1)	30 (5)
Usual sourcea Doctor Friend Street	1 (4) 10 (38) 15 (58)	2 (20) 3 (30) 5 (50)	0 1 (50) 1 (50)	0 0 1 (100)	2 (7) 12 (40) 18 (60)
Used to get high in last 3 months	14 (2)	7 (1)	1 (< 1)	0	15 (2)
Used to get high in last 30 days	5 (1)	3 (< 1)	1 (< 1)	0	8 (1)
Used to get high more than once	20 (3)	8 (1)	1 (< 1)	1 (< 1)	23 (4)

Totals may not add to 100 because of missing, don’t know, and refused responses; Individuals may be represented more than once in the “Any” column if they reported on more than one drug.

a

Proportion of the usual source of drug is among those who had reported ever using/ever using to get high

Citation:

Genberg, B. et al. (2013). Prevalence and correlates of street-obtained buprenorphine use among current and former injectors in Baltimore, Maryland. Addictive Behaviors.