“This month, the House and Senate will be marking up dozens of opioid-related bills, some of which attempt to expand access to the triad of Food and Drug Administration–approved medications to treat opioid addiction: methadone, buprenorphine, and injectable naltrexone. As physicians who have helped thousands of people sustain their recovery with these proven medications, we welcome enhanced funding and access to them. At the same time, we lament the reality that many of the people with opioid addiction who are among those at highest risk of death are unlikely to receive them: those in jails and prisons.
Drug use is concentrated in the corrections population. At least a quarter of the nearly 2.3 million Americans currently incarcerated are addicted to opioids. Between a quarter and one-third of the nation’s heroin users pass through correctional facilities each year. And their eventual release to the community is a time of high vulnerability.”
Read more at: https://slate.com/technology/2018/05/opioid-crisis-prisons-need-to-expand-access-to-maintenance-medication.html
Source: Slate.com May 8, 2018
