It wasn't displacing heroin. Heroin didn't make a resurgence. Krododil did, but its use was not nearly as prevalent as the use of Subutex was. The point is that the society got a lot safer and more productive after the Subutex problem was fixed.
"Krokodil" (which just by the way, barely creates trace amounts of Desomorphine; the chemistry just isn't correct. No-one really knows WHAT it creates) is guaranteed to kill you. Suboxone (while possible) generally didn't have that sort of guarantee. I'm not sure which is better.
The only concrete improvement I see cited is solving their needle disposal problem. Surely there are less drastic alternatives that could have accomplished that.
