Project Lazarus, a nonprofit organization based in Moravian Falls, North Carolina, is best known nationally for its work on making the overdose-reversal medication naloxone more available. But the organization, under the guidance of CEO Fred Wells Brason II, was also instrumental in bringing the first opioid treatment program (OTP) to Wilkes County North Carolina. It started as a buprenorphine clinic, which was more palatable to physicians, and then became a full-service OTP including methadone.
The first time Mr. Brason suggested that the county needed an OTP was in 2006, and the response, he recalled, was virulently anti-methadone. “They said, ‘not in our county, and not a drug for a drug.’” But there was no treatment available for people with opioid addiction.
But Mr. Brason, a combination of optimism, determination, and diplomacy, worked out an agreement. First, he got Mountain Health Solutions, an Asheville-based OTP, now owned by CRC Health Group, to set up a satellite clinic in Wilkes County. They would provide only buprenorphine at first—something that was more acceptable by the town. “At least we had something,” he said. Then, he embarked on a two-year education program focusing on methadone. “We talked about addiction, about treatment, and did a lot of myth-busting,” he said. In addition, census in the buprenorphine clinic continued to grow—and Mr. Brason knew that patients needed the comprehensive treatment that is provided in an OTP. “We didn’t want just dispensers, we wanted someone who was an advocate” for the patients, he said.
In addition, buprenorphine is much more expensive than methadone, and since Mountain Health Solutions doesn’t accept Medicaid, it could offer treatment only to people who could afford it, he said. So eventually, what was a buprenorphine clinic became a full-scale OTP in North Wilkesboro.
The doctors in Wilkes County and other counties were among the most vocal opponents of methadone and buprenorphine—at first. In one meeting with them and Jana Burson, MD, from the OTP, one doctor said he didn’t want “those people in the waiting room with Grandma,” Mr. Brason recalled. “I replied, ‘We are meeting right now in a church—and if this were Sunday morning, those people would be here.’” By the time the meeting was over, there was more understanding, at least of buprenorphine, said Mr. Brason, with some of the physicians agreeing to get a waiver so they could provide buprenorphine treatment.
Community Education
Mr. Brason provided education to the community about the importance of medication-assisted treatment during pregnancy, dispelling myths about neonatal abstinence syndrome (facts: NAS is transient and easily treatable, while withdrawing from opioids during pregnancy is harmful to the fetus). “Slowly, after a couple more years, methadone was introduced, and now they are serving more than 400 people a day in our tiny county,” he said. The vast majority are on methadone because they cannot afford buprenorphine.
There are now churches that are financially supporting their members for treatment—paying for the OTP and medications. “The church sees them, that they are going to church, they are going to work, they are supporting their families,” he said.
Mr. Brason is a chaplain, something that gives him credibility in the conservative South—maybe more credibility than a physician or scientist. In addition, he has worked extensively with a hospice in the area. “They know me and who I am,” he said. “That makes a difference.”
It’s still an uphill battle, he said; recently a county commissioner said that methadone clinics are a scam. Brason then sat down with a reporter and got a front page article showing that methadone treatment helps reduce overdose deaths. It was a public relations victory that benefited people who desperately needed help.
“We’ve had a for-profit private detox center all along,” said Mr. Brason. “We were losing people to overdose deaths 24 hours after detox.” That is much better now, because of the presence of the OTP.
Naloxone Kits
Opioid overdose deaths as a problem separate from addiction are also an important focus for Mr. Brason, who was able to introduce naloxone to Wilkes County. Through a grant from Purdue Pharma, the Lazarus Project was able to provide naloxone kits at no charge to the OTP. Originally, when the program started in 2009, this worked by the OTP writing prescriptions for the kits for all new patients—the first weeks on methadone are the riskiest for overdose, not from methadone but from other opioids as the patients are getting used to the doses. Then the patients would go to the pharmacy to pick up their prescription for the $50 kit. However, only 25 percent of the patients were actually getting these prescriptions filled. “They didn’t want to be seen at the pharmacy, they didn’t want the stigma,” he said. So he met with the OTP and agreed on a new system, in which Project Lazarus would pay for half the cost of the kit and the OTP would pay for the other half out of the patient’s enrollment fee. (The grant was over.) The OTP would write the prescription, and then send someone to the pharmacy to pick it up, giving it directly to the patient in the OTP
Spencer Clark, MSW, ACSW, who oversees OTPs for the North Carolina Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services, has been very interested in the naloxone kits, said Mr. Brason. “He wondered if they could do this for every OTP in the state.” So far the OTP has documented four lives saved.
Mr. Brason sends naloxone kits to organizations, including first responders like police departments, across the country. The kits include the nasal atomizers, not the actual naloxone, which must be prescribed. Eventually, he hopes that first responders will be able to use the new auto-injector. “It will be great for them, they don’t have to put it together” like the kits, which come in a box. However, because it does involve a needle, some first responders will be more comfortable with the nasal spray, he said.
Rescuing someone from an overdose should mean that person gets access to treatment, said Mr. Brason. First of all, they will—it is hoped—go to the emergency department to get checked out after the rescue. “We approach the link to treatment by tying all the services together. We get our crisis intervention teams to that person within an hour” of the rescue, he said. The crisis counselor interviews the individual to figure out the next steps.
For more information on ordering the kits ($12), go to info@projectlazarus.org. Project Lazarus has covered the shipping charges. For more general information on Project Lazarus, go to http://projectlazarus.org/.