I know I'm probably beating a dead horse here. I feel strongly on the subject though. I would feel badly if yoh walked away from this with anything other than the real dope.
A lot of folks go the very easy route of simply dissolving the strip in a vehicle, typically sterile water. They break down quickly as one might expect. I think this is part of the reason why they are so notorious for causing complications.
This issue here that we're discussing isn't limited just to Buprenorphine. I believe this is one of those "hidden" topics involved in drug addiction. It's not known due to its complexity, the general public's aversion to trying to understand.
A lot of people who have never dealt with addiction, especially to drugs, but really to anything frame the idea of addiction from their own perspective. "How could a person do that? Why don't they just quit?
Here is an example:
A lot of folks who know nothing about Opioids are aware that withdrawal is a days' long process. I'm usually pretty impressed by how many laypeople with no involvement in drugs know that Heroin withdrawal is a ~72 hour process. Perhaps it's just been featured so many times in pop-culture, movies and music that it's easy enough to pick up on. I don't know.
With this in mind, I've heard plenty of people make commentary to the effect of stating "he was in jail for 30 days, he's had time to withdraw, get healthy, find God and plan for a new life". It makes sense. However we know that this is not so simple. I think about Heroin several times per day, every day and I haven't injected Heroin for over 5 years now. I've heard many say that the feeling never goes away. I'm not neuroscientist, though it does seem that there are serious connections in our brains that last longer than just the period in which we're physically ill.
A lot of people aren't aware of the fact that a chronic Opioid/Alcohol user can restart their habit from square one within just a few days of usage. Considering the length of time it takes for a person to go from happy/healthy to completely inundated by their addiction is often months if not years in process. The changes are slow. So, when a person takes their person who was released from jail with a "brand new start" in life go from living in the house to sleeping on a dirty mattress in an alley in less than 48 hours. They don't understand.
Lastly, my main point, we all have hit the wall in addiction/dependence not to stop, but to dive even deeper than we ever had before for a reward that is a small fraction of what we thought we were getting. You go from stealing a 20 out of your Mom's purse to get really high, feel great and do other fun stuff. Years later, you're sucking someone's dick with your only hope being that you won't feel like death after the deed is over. It's diminishing returns. The sad thing is that a number can be divided an infinite number of times.
Somone choosing to start injecting their Buprenorphine is making a bad decision. Yes, it's a bad decision in a general sense. I'm trying to appeal to your sensibility as a junkie in saying that, even if you trade off everything you've got, you're not going to get that same high that your mind is sending you after; the high that you used to get. That is not in existence and you will not find it.
If you want to get high again, reduce your dosage, take a tolerance break and reinduct at lower dosages. Again, diminishing returns. I've found the less you use, the more you get. The problem is, this is the type of exercise that is, in-practice something that never happens with Opioids. 99% of people are either gonna be using them and working their way toward strung out or not using them at all. I love William Burroughs. He is definitely an argument for "maybe it can work". Also, he was from money and received a decent allowance from a Trust, I think until death.
I've met people who have achieved stability using maintenance. The sweet spot for both Methadone and Buprenorphine is the same. It seems to be highly dependent upon the dosage. Lower dosages seem to provide more benefit with less side effects. We all know getting really fucking jammed always sounds like fun if you're a user, but again, in practice, a person too high on Opioids is just numb, uninteresting and zombified.