In short, yes these patches can be used recreationally, but not by wearing them as you're supposed to, read below for an explanation:
Here in Poland our main source of Buprenorphine in terms of sublingual pills (like Suboxone and Subutex) is Bunondol, which is only 0.4mg per pill, and fairly pricey. As a result, people started looking to get it elsewhere, and people started finding ways to extract Buprenorphine from transdermal patches, since it's fairly easy to get prescribed 20-40mg Transdermal patches here.
It works out a lot cheaper to me to buy Transtec 40mg Buprenorphine patches than buying pills, so that's what I always do if I want Bupe. You can definitely use these patches recreationally if you can still get a good recreational high from Buprenorphine to begin with - if your tolerance is too high to enjoy Bupe then you're out of luck.
The issue though comes with extracting the patches. If you wear a 40mg patch, you'll get a few days of a feeling like if you were on say 0.5-1mg sublingual Bupe. But if you cut the matrix into 40 equal sections and extract them, you can get 40 days of feeling like you're on ~1mg of Bupe.
With a 5mg patch you're not going to get a whole lot from it, since even with low tolerance that's going to be maybe 5 doses max. I wouldn't bother wearing the patch if you're hoping for a recreational high, since most users even those with low tolerances get no high from the 40mg patches, nevermind the 5mg ones.
If you're looking for pure recreation then:
- Cut up the matrix in the centre of the patch into 5 equal size strips
- Decide whether you want to dose: Sublingually, nasally, rectally, or via intravenous injection
- If you chose anything other than sublingual, buy yourself an oral syringe or two, and if you chose intravenous, be aware that anything water soluble in the patch will also be injected along with the active ingredient, decide if it's worth any potential extra damage that could do, and if you feel it is, get yourself some syringes and some needles - along with some micron filters.
Now, if you chose sublingual:
- Remove the foil from the 1mg section of patch.
- Wash your mouth with mouthwash and apply a small amount of ethanol to the area under your tongue to aid sublingual absorption.
- Take your 1mg section of patch (1/5th of the matrix) and place it under your tongue. Keep it there for about 1.5 hours, after that point keep it there for another hour or two, but spend this time chewing it and moving it about with your tongue. All this agitation, the warm temperature of your mouth, and your saliva, help a much larger amount of the Buprenorphine be released than the ug/hour that is supposed to be. Depending on how good you get at doing this you'll get anywhere from around 1/4 to ~90% of the dose that's in this section of patch from doing this for 2.5-3.5 hours. If you find you're not high enough, you can always dose a little more, but you'd be surprised, even 0.25mg Bupe taken in this way can be a solid dose if you're usually just a Codeine user.
If you chose nasal or rectal:
- Clean a bottle cap or spoon or something else you can easily leave some water standing on, add ~1.5ml of water, now remove the foil from the 1mg section of patch and place it sticky side down floating in the water. Leave it there for anywhere from 6 to 30+ hours depending on your patience - add more water if you notice the water starting to evaporate to ensure that there's at least around 1ml of water (but ideally not much more, and definitely not if you only have 1cc syringes) in the spoon/bottle cap.
- You can add some light heat to speed up the process.
- Once done, you'll have anywhere from 40-99% of the dose in the solution, now take the solution and either tilt your head to the side and slowly drop by drop drip it into your nose, allowing it time to absorb but not pushing so much in that it leaks down your throat or out your nose - or if you're plugging, follow some of the plugging guides on this forum to dose like that.
If you chose IV:
- Do as above but make sure that the spoon or implement you extract the Bupe in is sterile, along with your hands, the water, and your syringe and needles - along with anything else that comes into contact with any of them or you during the process. Once the extraction process is complete, take your micron filter, and use it to filter the Bupe into your syringe, if all has gone well you should see a clear solution that looks just like water, with no parts or colouring in it - if this is the case then your patch is fairly safe to IV using micron filtering (far safer than the likes of pills and such anyhow) - if on the other hand you notice a thick/gunky/murky/coloured solution then you may wish to rethink if you want to IV it, and instead plug it.
- If you have a nice colourless water-like solution to work with then you're ready to shoot it, find a nice vein, tie off, find a good spot, draw blood to ensure you're in, and shoot. You may wish to re-register and check you're still in a vein multiple times if using a larger vein since in my experience with the patches I work with little else other than the Bupe goes in the solution and so it's quite easy on the body and as a result it doesn't really hurt to inject it subcutaneously or intramuscularly - meaning if I slip out of a vein, I won't realise unless I keep checking for blood, so that's why I advise it, since subcutaneous/intramuscular Bupe has little advantage over other ROAs and you want to be IVing if you're going to inject it really.
If you're looking for pain relief then:
If you aren't going for recreational use you have a choice to make - do you care about getting the most out of your Bupe and potentially having left over Bupe that you can build up over time for recreational use/for additional pain that requires higher dosages? If you answered no to that then just wear the patch as recommended and see how that works out for you. If that doesn't work or if you answered yes, then I'd recommend looking at what I wrote about recreational use, but look specifically at rectal use/plugging, since it's the most efficient route other than injecting Bupe, and in my opinion is actually better than injecting for pain relief, because the additional pain relief from injecting a dose is virtually non-existent over plugging, they're about the same - but plugging Bupe lasts 2-3x longer than injecting, with about the same duration as sublingual, but being about 1.5-2x stronger.
I'd recommend finding out how often you're supposed to put on a new patch, dividing the total dosage of the patch by how many days you wear it to get a "maximum daily dose" that you could take if you're extracting the patch so as not to exceed this limit, then halving or dividing that dose by 3-4 to get the plugged dose you should take each day for a similar level of pain relief.
For example, say you're supposed to wear this 5mg patch for 4 days, that would mean the maximum daily dose would be 1/4 of the patch extracted each day for you to avoid running out of your prescription early. Now since transdermal has a horrible bioavailability of 10% and plugging is closer to 70%, plugging is much more effective. 5mg/4 = 1.25mg, which is a lot more than you need if you're just going for pain relief. Instead of dividing your patch matrix into 4 doses and taking one each day, divide it into 10-15 equal doses, and take one of those each day, and you should get the same level of pain relief or more than if you were wearing the patch, while only using a patch every 10-15 days instead of every 4 days. That way you'll end up with a lot saved up, and can use the above methods for recreational use when you feel like it.
Hope this helps
I have a ton of experience with Bupe in patch form so if you ever need to ask anything specific feel free to drop me a PM if I forget to check back in this thread.
Final important note:
Just remember, DO NOT take Buprenorphine in any shape or form until you're in withdrawal from your last dose of opiates/opioids, or you may go into precipitated withdrawals - which is like being catapulted straight into the worst phase of withdrawals in a matter of seconds/minutes, it's pretty hellish and horrible to endure. I'd recommend waiting 24-30 hours since your last dose of Codeine to dose, but if you can't manage that, then at least 12-20.
I mention this because your doctor might not warn you about this when switching you, as for some reason most of the people I know who're prescribed patches were never warned about this. It may be due to how ineffective Bupe is when used transdermally, as such low doses may be incapable of causing the precipitated withdrawals - however it's not worth the risk either way, and if you are extracting from the patch with the methods I detailed in my post then it's even more important as you'll be getting more out of your Bupe and getting a higher dose all at once so precipitated withdrawals can and *will* happen if you don't wait long enough after other opioids to dose.
For what it's worth, you can do it the other way around though, i.e. while dosing Codeine and then dosing Bupe a couple hours later will cause horribly crippling withdrawals, dosing Bupe and then dosing Codeine a couple of hours later will not. However Bupe will interfere with Codeine's effects, so if you're on more than 0.5-1mg of Bupe I wouldn't recommend ever combining it with other opioids, and if you're on a lower dose like that just know that the combo might still be weaker than just dosing the other opioid alone - and that after dosing it you'll need to wait again for roughly 24 hours (or more if it's a long lasting opioid) before dosing Bupe if you want to avoid precipitated withdrawals again.
