News Updates

Medicaid expansion was associated with reductions in total opioid overdose deaths, particularly deaths involving heroin and synthetic opioids other than methadone, but increases in methadone-related mortality. As states invest more resources in addressing the opioid overdose epidemic, attention should be paid to the role that Medicaid expansion may play in reducing opioid overdose mortality, in…

Continue Reading Association of Medicaid Expansion With Opioid Overdose Mortality in the United States

The opioid epidemic in the U.S. is driving a simultaneous epidemic of infectious diseases — including HIV, hepatitis C virus (HCV) and bacterial infections, and sexually transmitted infections — but workforce shortages, stigma, and financial and policy barriers are preventing the integration of opioid use disorder (OUD) and infectious disease services, says a new report…

Continue Reading Policy, Financing, Stigma, and Workforce Barriers Stand in the Way of Addressing Co-Occurring Opioid and Infectious Disease Epidemics

In this carefully conducted systematic review, the authors found that correctional facilities should scale up opioid agonist treatment (methadone and buprenorphine) among incarcerated persons with opioid use disorder. The strategy is likely to decrease opioid-related overdose and mortality, reduce opioid use and other risky behaviors during and after incarceration, and improve retention in addiction treatment…

Continue Reading Opioid-Related Treatment, Interventions, and Outcomes Among Incarcerated Persons: A Systematic Review

To optimize HIV prevention and treatment goals in Ukraine, opioid agonist treatment (OAT) must be substantially scaled up in all regions, the authors found. Increased medication procurement is needed, combined with optimization of OAT dosing. Source: The Lancethttps://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanhiv/article/PIIS2352-3018(19)30373-X/fulltext

Continue Reading Effect of Expanding Opioid Agonist Therapies on the HIV Epidemic and Mortality in Ukraine: A Modeling Study

Salt Lake County has a new strategy to combat the opioid crisis from inside the county’s jail. The new approach seeks to address the opioid epidemic by administering medication designed to treat addiction and providing patients with substance abuse counseling while they are in jail custody. “Not only is this intervention the compassionate thing to…

Continue Reading Salt Lake County Program Aims to Combat the Opioid Crisis from Inside Jail

Salvador Ceniceros, a psychiatrist on the front lines of the opioid epidemic, took a break between seeing patients the other day to reflect. He’s finally gaining traction at Jordan Valley Community Health Center, which gives him a sense of urgency to speak his mind. Since July 2018, Jordan Valley, which has nine clinics in southwest…

Continue Reading ‘A Different Way’: Walk-in Clinic Sees Success Treating Opioid Addicts with Medication

Local leaders got their first look at a new opioid treatment clinic in East Bremerton that could open by the end of the year. On a tour Monday, BAART clinic staff showed a group of Kitsap law enforcement officers, county officials and elected leaders the soon-to-be-open facility, which will provide medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid addiction.…

Continue Reading An Inside Look Inside Kitsap’s First Methadone Clinic

Although the SAMHSA buprenorphine practitioner locator is used by patients and providers to locate treatment options, only a small portion of clinicians in the database ultimately offered initial appointments, implying that the database is only marginally useful for patients. Source: Journal of Psychiatric Practicehttps://journals.lww.com/practicalpsychiatry/Fulltext/2020/01000/Availability_of_Buprenorphine_Treatment_in_the_10.3.aspx

Continue Reading Availability of Buprenorphine Treatment in the 10 States With the Highest Drug Overdose Death Rates in the United States

Even after surviving an opioid overdose, few U.S. teenagers receive the recommended treatment for their addiction, a new study shows. Researchers found that of nearly 3,800 teenagers and young adults who’d suffered an opioid overdose, less than one-third went into addiction treatment within a month. And only one in 54 received the medication recommended for…

Continue Reading Few Teens Who Survive Opioid OD Get Recommended Care

The Olympia Bupe Clinic opened at the Capital Recovery Center on Cherry Street Southeast, which also houses the county-run syringe exchange. It provides buprenorphine, which serves as a safer alternative to opioids and heroin, which is the drug people with opioid use disorder often turn to when their prescriptions run out. The Bupe Clinic was…

Continue Reading A Look Inside the Olympia Clinic Serving Hundreds of People Battling Opioid Addiction

In St. Louis, Seattle and San Francisco, people with opioid addictions can start medication on their first day of treatment. Early research suggests the approach can change lives. But it will be a tough sell elsewhere: Nearly two-thirds of U.S. treatment centers don’t offer anti-addiction drugs and there’s resistance to easy access. In Missouri, some…

Continue Reading Walk-in Clinics for Opioid Addiction Offer Meds First, Fast

“My first thought was the day I knew was coming, is here,” said Sherry Petrowski. In 2014 her son, Chris Sullivan, died of an opioid overdose. “When you’re the mother of an addict every time a phone rings, every time you walk away from your child you feel like it’s the last time,” explained Petrowski.…

Continue Reading Opioid Addiction Treatment Center Planned to Come to Maryville

The Michigan Department of Corrections says more than 20% of its inmates have an opioid-use disorder. Wayne County Jail, the state’s largest, has similar numbers. Inmates returning home after incarceration are at acute risk of overdose and death from opioids — between 40 and 120 times more likely to die of an opioid overdose, according to…

Continue Reading ‘First Shot is Free’: Hundreds Incarcerated in Michigan Offered Opioid Blocker Shots

Lewis & Clark Behavioral Health Services (LCBHS) is helping those fighting opioid addiction with both in-patient and out-patient services, and now, with targeted medications. Though LCBHS has provided alcohol and drug addiction treatment for some time, that treatment is now able to be honed specifically towards opioid dependency, which is on the rise around the…

Continue Reading LCBHS Brings Buprenorphine and Naltrexone To The Fight Against Opioid Addiction

The Grant County Health Department is planning to tackle the local drug crisis in 2020 by connecting the existing nonprofits in the county. “As we looked over the entire nation over the last few years, there’s a tidal wave over big cities and little cities impacting with the drug crisis,” said Health Officer William David…

Continue Reading Health Department to Coordinate Drug Response in 2020

Senators Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are hoping to increase ranks in fighting the opioid epidemic through the introduction of their bipartisan bill the Opioid Workforce Act of 2019 (S.2892). Citing the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) 2018 report that approximately 21 million people needed treatment for a substance use…

Continue Reading The ‘Opioid Workforce Act’ Hopes To Increase Ranks In Fighting The Opioid Epidemic

Opioid use disorder (OUD) among older adults has been increasing, yet evidence still remains scarce for age-specific treatment. We discuss the three US Food and Drug Administration-approved medications used to treat OUD (methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone) and consider evidence gaps in OUD treatment in older adults.  Legislation passed in 2018 (the Substance Use Disorder Prevention That…

Continue Reading Help Is on the Way: Medicare Coverage of Opioid Treatment Programs

Among the three medications approved for the treatment of opioid use disorder (methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone), methadone has been in use for the longest period and has the most extensive evidence base of effectiveness. Yet it remains underutilized as new insurance policies favor access to buprenorphine and neglect to dismantle barriers to obtaining methadone. In the absence…

Continue Reading Private Coverage of Methadone in Outpatient Treatment Programs

Few patients with opioid use disorder receive medication for addiction treatment. In 2017 the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act enabled nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) to obtain federal waivers allowing them to prescribe buprenorphine, a key medication for opioid use disorder. The waiver expansion was intended to increase patients’ access to opioid use treatment,…

Continue Reading In Rural Areas, Buprenorphine Waiver Adoption Since 2017 Driven By Nurse Practitioners And Physician Assistants

This special issue of BMC Health Services Research focuses on how health services research has emerged as an important contributor to efforts to control the opioid epidemic in North America and Europe. Addiction health service researchers have focused efforts on opioid use disorder (OUD) and strategies to address the emerging public health threats associated with…

Continue Reading Opioid Use Disorder and Treatment: Challenges and Opportunities

Memantine is commonly used for the treatment of moderate-to-severe Alzheimer’s disease. It has also been investigated for potential utilization in opioid use disorder (OUD). The objective of this systematic review is to assess the evidence available to determine the safety and efficacy of memantine as treatment for OUD. After assessing studies appropriate for the objective,…

Continue Reading Adjunctive Memantine for Opioid use Disorder Treatment: A Systematic Review

Current federal regulations complicate the provision of effective treatment for opioid use disorder in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities, according to this Viewpoint. As a result, many patients experience costly cycles of complications, admission, discharge, repeated complications, and readmission with little gain to their health. Researchers argue that changing regulations of the Substance Abuse and…

Continue Reading Facilitating Methadone Use in Hospitals and Skilled Nursing Facilities

Treatment with methadone works, but patients have to remain in treatment. That’s the lesson from a recent study – and from all studies. This study, in particular, looked at jail inmates who were inducted on methadone, and then entered community based-treatment.  The conclusions: Initiating methadone treatment in jail was effective in promoting entry into community-based drug abuse…

Continue Reading Jail-Based Methadone Induction Effective, But Benefits Only Last if Patients Remain in Treatment After Discharge

Grant money received from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) for treatment and assimilation of inmates with opioid addictions back into society were a topic of discussion at the Northumberland County Jail’s monthly board meeting Wednesday. The Vivitrol and Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) grant money provides a combined total of about $400,000 worth…

Continue Reading County Prison Receives $400,000 Toward the Cost of Vivitrol

Young people do better in school if they are treated for opioid use disorders, resulting in lower costs to society. Recent research suggests that opioid users achieve lower levels of education, which may result in both individual and economic costs. Prevention programs need to not only include education-specific risk factors (e.g., social norms), but underlying…

Continue Reading Buprenorphine for College Students Recommended

There has been interest in cannabis being used as a replacement drug for people with opioid use disorder, but research at McMaster University has found it doesn’t work. Source: Canadian Medical Association Journal Read more at: http://cmajopen.ca/content/7/4/E665

Continue Reading Cannabis Found Not to be a Substitute for Opioids

The state of Michigan on Thursday announced it will begin providing medication-assisted treatment for prisoners with addiction and support more needle exchange programs in an effort to combat the nationwide opioid epidemic. “We are losing more than five people every single day to opioid overdoses,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a prepared statement, announcing the initiatives.…

Continue Reading Michigan to Offer Opioid Addiction Treatment in Prison, Increase Syringe Exchange Programs

(Editor’s note: it’s not the first, Rikers in NY had them beat by 30 years and there are many others in other states, so we hope WBUR will change their headline…but still, congratulations to Massachusetts.) Methadone and Suboxone (the brand name for buprenorphine) ease opioid cravings and withdrawal symptoms. Forty-four of the estimated 200 people…

Continue Reading Mass. Has The First Jail In The Country That’s Also A Licensed Methadone Treatment Provider

The ACLU of Colorado on Tuesday filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Colorado against GEO Group, Inc., which operates the immigrant detention facility in Aurora, for the death of Kamyar Samimi in December 2017. Samimi, a legal permanent resident originally from Iran, was 64 years old when he died in December 2017…

Continue Reading ACLU of Colorado Sues GEO Group for Wrongful Death in Man’s 2017 Death at Aurora Facility

COLUMBIA, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee doctor who had five patients fatally overdose in a 10-month span intends to plead guilty to distributing a controlled substance. The Tennessean reports 64-year-old Dr. Darrel Rinehart’s attorney filed a motion to have a hearing in December where Rinehart “intends to plead guilty.” (more…)

Continue Reading Tenn. Doctor Plans to Plead Guilty to Opioid Distribution

SEATTLE (KOMO) — Right in the midst of the opioid crisis, another illicit drug has hit the streets of Seattle. Experts say it’s more potent and deadly than other opiods. The DEA says carfentanil is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times stronger than fentanyl. It was first detected in Seattle in March.…

Continue Reading An Opioid More Deadly than Fentanyl Found on Seattle Streets

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has sued the board that regulates Colorado’s pharmacies, demanding it share information from a database that tracks opioid prescriptions and setting up a clash over patient privacy amid the nation’s overdose epidemic. The requested information is part of an investigation into whether two unnamed pharmacies broke the law in dispensing…

Continue Reading Why the DEA is Suing Colorado’s Pharmacy Board as Part of an Opioid Investigation

It was just over two years ago that doctors at Alexandria Clinic were given report cards detailing all the opioids they were prescribing to their patients on a daily basis. “Everybody was in a state of shock in realizing where we were on that scale of prescribing,” said Dr. Deb Dittberner, chief medical officer for Alomere Health, which oversees…

Continue Reading How One Minnesota Clinic Slashed Its Number of Opioid Prescriptions

New York’s insurance regulator has formally notified a group of opioid manufacturers and distributors that it will launch a civil enforcement action against them for contributing towards a rise in health insurance premiums in the state, said two sources familiar with the matter. (more…)

Continue Reading N.Y. Insurance Regulator Notifies Opioid Makers, Distributors of Enforcement Action -Sources

Florida may be on the right track to reducing the amount of opioid-caused deaths, according to the Department of Children and Families, but only if that state can find funding. Ute Gazioch, the director of Substance Abuse and Mental Health at the Florida Department of Children and Families, has high hopes for the state’s approach…

Continue Reading Florida Seeks Funding To Continue Opioid Fight

Operators of a newly-opened methadone clinic in Springfield, Massachusetts plan to meet with neighbors Monday who complain their quality of life has been disrupted. Residents and business owners in Springfield’s South End have witnessed an increase in apparent drug use, prostitution, and panhandling in the last few months, according to Leo Florian, president of the…

Continue Reading Methadone Clinic Operators To Meet With Neighbors Following Complaints

In the latest twist in the facial recognition tech tale, Melbourne, Australia startup Strong Room is developing artificial intelligence software for the dispensing of the opioid replacement drug methadone. Source: SmartCompany Read more at: https://www.smartcompany.com.au/startupsmart/news/facial-recognition-pharmacy-strong-room/

Continue Reading Facial Recognition in the Pharmacy: Meet Strong Room, the Startup Bringing Tech into Opioid-Addiction Treatment

Delaware’s Department of Correction announced in June it is expanding Medication Assisted Treatment to all of its level five facilities. The DOC previously only offered MAT to pregnant women and would also use medicine to assist offenders going through opioid withdrawal. But for the past few months now, methadone, buprenorphine and Vivitrol have been available…

Continue Reading Expanded Treatment Program in First State Prisons Seeks to Stem Opioid Crisis

Workers in the construction industry are most likely to use cocaine and misuse prescription opioids compared with other employees, according to a study published last week by the Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV Research at the New York University College of Global Public Health. (more…)

Continue Reading Construction Workers are the Most Likely to Misuse Prescription Opioids

About 48,000 people lost their lives to opioids in 2017, the latest year for which complete data is available, according to a new study. Synthetic opioids (not methadone), such as fentanyl, accounted for almost two-thirds of those deaths. In large metropolitan areas, black adults saw the largest increases in rates of drug overdose deaths involving…

Continue Reading The Changing Face of the US Opioid Epidemic: Middle-Aged Black Adults See Rise in Deaths

Mention the opioid epidemic, and many people might think it’s something that mostly affects the person using the drugs. But the epidemic has much deeper roots, reaches much further than any one person, and battling it requires a cooperative effort from an array of medical and human services professionals. (more…)

Continue Reading Opioid Epidemic Has Deep Roots

The  process of the city of Sequim, Washington for the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe’s proposed medication-assisted treatment (MAT) facility is about to begin. Barry Berezowsky, Sequim’s community development director, said he’s scheduled to meet with tribe health services director Brent Simcosky on Oct. 31 for a pre-application meeting regarding the project. The facility, named by the…

Continue Reading Tribe, City to Begin Application Talks for MAT Clinic

At a roundtable discussion last Thursday, North Carolina State Attorney General Josh Stein and local leaders discussed the opioid crisis and how our region is dealing with it. The event, hosted by Stein and WECT, featured different viewpoints on the epidemic. But many of these local perspectives echoed a larger, national conversation. Over 2 million…

Continue Reading Local Perspectives on Opioid Crisis Echo a Larger, National Conversation

In this week’s $260 million settlement between drug companies and two Ohio counties hit hard by the opioid crisis, $25 million worth of the addiction medication known as Suboxone is a big part of the deal. Suboxone would make up a much larger share of a proposed national settlement announced shortly afterward by a bipartisan…

Continue Reading In Opioid Settlements, Suboxone Plays a Leading Role

While thousands of cities and counties have banded together to sue opioid makers and distributors in federal court, another group of plaintiffs has started to sue on their own: hospitals. “The expense of treating overdose and opioid-addicted patients has skyrocketed, straining the resources of hospitals throughout our state,” said Lee Bond, CEO of Singing River…

Continue Reading Hospitals Take Shot At Opioid Makers Over Cost Of Treating Uninsured For Addiction

October 26 marked National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, which provided Americans an opportunity to prevent drug misuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs. One of the most tangible examples of the dangers of misusing prescription drugs comes from the opioid crisis, which the Council of…

Continue Reading The Full Cost of the Opioid Crisis: $2.5 Trillion Over Four Years

The nation’s three biggest drug distributors and a major drugmaker agreed to an 11th-hour, $260 million settlement Monday over the terrible toll taken by opioids in two Ohio counties, averting the first federal trial over the crisis. The trial, involving Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County and Akron’s Summit County, was seen as a critical test case that…

Continue Reading $260 Million Deal Averts 1st Federal Trial on Opioid Crisis

Over the past few years, the Gazette has reported on many families who have lost loved ones to the opioid epidemic. Parents want to honor their children and who they were before, after and during their struggle with addiction — and as a result, our stories have centered on the person who died. But what…

Continue Reading Those Left Behind: Opioids and the Epidemic of Loss

Another milestone was crossed this week in the legal action involving opioids, and the crisis associated with addition. Three opioid distributors and one pharmaceutical company reached settlements with two Ohio counties, Summit and Cuyahoga, for more than a quarter of a billion dollars. (more…)

Continue Reading Nevada Addicted: Why Nevada Won’t Settle Opioid Suit

New data from the Tennessee Department of Health reveals there were 1,818 drug overdose deaths in 2018, the highest total since 2014. The Tennessee Drug Overdose Dashboard records county, regional, and state-level data on fatal overdoses, nonfatal overdoses, and drug prescriptions. According to the data, there have been a total of 7,939 drug overdose deaths…

Continue Reading Tennessee Drug and Opioid Overdose Rates Hit Five Year High in 2018

Jose DeJesus pulls his silver minivan out of a parking lot in back of a row of historic houses on New Haven’s Congress Avenue. He points with pride to the flowers he planted around the lot. Then he grimly spins a commentary as he gives a tour of the surrounding Hill neighborhood. (more…)

Continue Reading Growing Opioid Crisis Tests Limits of Methadone Clinics

The operators of a newly-opened methadone clinic in Springfield, Massachusetts have declined the mayor’s invitation to attend a community meeting. Residents and business owners in Springfield’s South End say there has been an increase in break-ins, prostitution, aggressive panhandling and apparent drug use, since a methadone clinic opened in the neighborhood roughly two months ago.…

Continue Reading Methadone Clinic Operators Turn Down Mayor’s Invite To Neighborhood Meeting

– In a discreet clinic just outside the Kenyan capital, a recovering heroin addict named Peter holds the hand of his two-year-old daughter as he drinks a dose of methadone. Peter’s teeth are yellow and he looks much older than 26. (more…)

Continue Reading Kenya Struggles to Cope With Growing Number of Heroin Users

SOMERDALE, N.J., Oct. 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Camden County had the highest number of drug-related deaths in New Jersey in 2017, and was the 37th worst county out of 3000 total counties in the nation for drug deaths, according to Centers for Disease Control data. To meet the need for treatment for those suffering from an opioid addiction in this area, Recovery Centers…

Continue Reading To Meet the Need for Opioid Addiction Treatment in Camden County and South Jersey, RCA’s Fourth NJ Addiction Treatment Program Opens to the Public for Expert Discussion and Tours

When 64-year-old Kamyar Samimi died in ICE custody, the agency issued a routine press release saying the preliminary cause of his death was cardiac arrest. It boasted about the nearly $200 million it had been spending annually on health care services for detainees, saying that “comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment detainees arrive and…

Continue Reading Medical Care in Immigrant Detention Centers Under Fire Over Methadone Withdrawal

Summit to take wide-ranging look at factors of race, stigma, policy, and the lived experience of patients (more…)

Continue Reading Specialists Take on Opioid Crisis

The bottom half of a small basketball court is covered by cheerful yellow paint and speckled with marker doodles of smiling stick figures, flowers and sets of two humps to indicate birds in a sunny sky. That yellow matches stripes on the linoleum floor in the main area set off by columns in cheerful pastels.…

Continue Reading Mcklenburg County Opens NC’s First Jail Psych Unit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD3f4oBkUIY Source: Youtube

Continue Reading Dr Herbert Kleber: Google Doodle Honours Pioneering Addiction Psychiatrist

Alarmed at a citywide spike in fentanyl OD deaths, San Francisco Mayor London Breed will announce Monday that city health and homelessness officials are creating a program for the city’s vast network of gritty SRO hotels and apartments that will train residents and managers on how to best stop people from dying from drug overdoses — particularly…

Continue Reading Spike in Fentanyl Deaths Spurs Overdose Prevention Program in SF Residential Hotels

The Franklin County Coroner’s Office on Sunday reported a surge in overdose deaths and warned residents that they could be fentanyl-related. “As of about 10am this morning we have had 10 people die of overdoses in about 26 hours. This is an unusually high number for our county in this period of time,” the office…

Continue Reading 10 Deaths in 26 Hours Amid Growing Overdose Epidemic in Ohio

Nick Chudnow died on Oct. 4, 2017, of an overdose of fentanyl, making him one of 466 people in Wisconsin that year who died from synthetic opioid use. Nick, who was 29, was the only child of Dick, the founder of ComedySportz, and his wife Jennifer Rupp, a writer, actor and a co-founder of Milwaukee’s Renaissance Theaterworks.…

Continue Reading Their Son Died From Fentanyl. Now ComedySportz Founder and Spouse Back Efforts to Keep Other Kids From Becoming Addicted to Drugs.

Take, for example, a young doctor I watched fall into its clutches. Like most college students, he experimented with alcohol. When his post-college experimentation expanded to cocaine and opioids, his judgment left him, but his false confidence — fueled by his training in neurophysiology — did not. As he moved into medical school and then…

Continue Reading Regardless of Race, Income, Gender, or Profession, Addiction is a Complex Medical Disease That Can Affect Anyone.

SAMHSA Quietly Deleted All Blog Entries Before 2017 The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, quietly deleted hundreds of blog entries from its blog that pre-dated the current administration. The oldest entries date back only to September 2017, with hundreds of…

Continue Reading Here’s How to Fight Addiction. Trust Me, I’m in Recovery — But does the government have the guts?

Some providers have come out against a recent HHS proposal that would expand law enforcement’s access to patient records that involve addiction treatment information, worrying it could deter people from seeking care. The proposal from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration would allow courts to authorize disclosure of these patient records when investigating…

Continue Reading Providers Push Back on Loosening Patient Privacy for Criminal Investigations

An expected Medicaid expansion next year will allow more low-income Southwest Colorado residents struggling with drug and alcohol addiction to seek more intensive treatment. Local addiction experts say they hope new access to inpatient and residential addiction treatment can help prevent overdose deaths, which have been rising statewide for decades. (more…)

Continue Reading Medicaid Expanding to Cover Inpatient, Residential Addiction Treatment

North Carolina needs more foster parents, as the state grapples with record numbers of children entering and staying in the already stretched foster care system, mainly due to the opioid crisis. The foster care system in North Carolina continues to experience record levels of need, the increases believed to be yet another aspect of devastation…

Continue Reading Foster Care Case Numbers Continue to Climb in NC, as Opioid Crisis Affects Families

Methadone, one of three medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat opioid use disorder (OUD), is effective in reducing illicit opioid use and mortality.   Despite extensive evidence of its effectiveness, methadone remains one of the most heavily regulated drugs in the United States. At a time when additional methadone treatment capacity…

Continue Reading Methadone Barriers Persist, Despite Decades Of Evidence

About two months after Boston police arrested dozens of people in “Operation Clean Sweep,” state lawmakers will consider legislation to address some of the issues that prompted the police action. The sweep occurred in an area of Boston’s South End where there are many services for addiction treatment and the homeless. State Sen. Nick Collins, who…

Continue Reading Walking The South End With A Mass. Lawmaker Proposing New Laws To Combat The Opioid Crisis

One out of three Missouri participants in Medicare’s prescription drug program were prescribed opioids last year, more than the national rate of 29%, according to a newly released government report. About 973,000 Missourians were enrolled in Medicare Part D and 321,000 of them received opioids, the report by the U.S. Department of Health & Human…

Continue Reading Missourians on Medicare Use More Opioids Than the National Average

The American Civil Liberties Union said it had reached a settlement with a federal prison in Kansas that had denied buprenorphine, an opioid addiction medication, to an inmate who the group said would “inevitably suffer and possibly die” without it. The inmate, Leaman Crews, is set to receive the medication Wednesday night, Lauren Bonds, legal director…

Continue Reading Kansas Inmate Will Be Allowed Opioid Addiction Drugs

New York City is showing modest progress in the fight to curb the explosion in drug overdoses, with the health department reporting 38 fewer deaths last year compared to 2017, after a concerted $60-million effort focused on substance abuse prevention, treatment, and education, especially with regard to opioids. Medication-assisted treatment involves prescribing and administering drugs such as…

Continue Reading In Opioid Fight, City Expands Access to Crucial Medication-Assisted Treatment

The tentative settlement involving the opioid crisis and the maker of OxyContin could mean that thousands of local governments will one day be paid back for some of the costs of responding to the epidemic. But for public officials in Akron, no amount of money will restore the families and institutions that were upended by…

Continue Reading Settlement Money Won’t Restore Ohio City Upended by Opioids

Here in the foothills of the lush Ozark Mountains, where the Cherokee Nation re-formed its government after U.S. soldiers marched members of the tribe out of the South in the 1830s, people say the removal of children from their Native homes is the most troubling part of the opioid crisis. The earliest evidence that the…

Continue Reading In Cherokee Country, Opioid Crisis Seen as Existential Threat

When it comes to drug overdoses, many people have a preconceived idea of who the typical overdose death victim is. I strongly reject that stereotyping. The faces of this crisis include a young adult who became addicted because he was injured while playing pickup basketball and was prescribed opioids to deal with the pain. They…

Continue Reading Continuing to Help Those With the Disease of Addiction

Peter Grinspoon got addicted to Vicodin in medical school, and still had an opioid addiction five years into practice as a primary care physician. Then, in February 2005, he got caught. One day, during lunch, the state police and the DEA showed up at his medical office in Boston. “I start going all, ‘I’m glad…

Continue Reading For Health Workers Struggling With Addiction, Why are Treatment Options Limited

Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, the drug widely seen as igniting the opioid crisis, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday Sept. 15, a move at the center of the company’s efforts to shield itself and its owners from more than 2,600 federal and state lawsuits. (more…)

Continue Reading Purdue Pharma, Maker of Oxycontin, Files for Bankruptcy

Lawyers for cities and counties suing drug companies over the opioid epidemic on Sept. 16 objected to a bid by pharmaceutical distributors and pharmacies to disqualify the federal judge overseeing the cases, saying it had no basis and came too late. The plaintiffs’ lawyers moved swiftly to fight the request companies including AmerisourceBergen Corp, Cardinal…

Continue Reading Opioid Plaintiffs Fight Bid to Disqualify U.S. Judge Before Trial

Sheriffs, health officials and lawmakers gathered Thursday at the State House to discuss a recently launched pilot program at seven county correctional systems. Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association President Peter Koutoujian said participating jails are now offering all three federally-approved opioid treatment medications: methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone. The efforts were mandated under a broader opioid bill lawmakers approved last…

Continue Reading Mass. Jails Expand Use Of Medication To Treat Opioid Addiction

Opioid addiction can happen to anyone, and that includes doctors and nurses. But unlike the general population, they are often barred from medications like methadone, the gold standard of treatment.   When doctors and nurses become addicted to opioids and they get caught, they have to follow strict treatment guidelines to get their licenses back.…

Continue Reading Treatment Limitations For Physicians With Opioid Addictions

The American Medical Association (AMA) and Manatt Health released an analysis today identifying effective state policies used to combat the opioid epidemic. First on the list: increasing access to medication-assisted treatment. The analysis looked at the response to the epidemic in four states and determined which polices increased access to evidence-based treatment for people with a substance…

Continue Reading National Opioid Policy Roadmap Highlights State Efforts on Epidemic

With opioid overdose deaths surging in Wisconsin, two methadone clinics have opened in Madison this year, giving the city four of the state-licensed centers. Both of the new clinics, officially known as opioid treatment programs, also offer buprenorphine, or Suboxone, another medication used in addiction treatment. One provides naltrexone, or Vivitrol, the other drug approved to treat opioid addiction.…

Continue Reading Two Methadone Clinics Open in Madison, Doubling Capacity as Opioid Deaths Rise

In a letter to the editor about a planned opioid treatment program near Jamestown, New York, Rebecca Morgan writes to object to the “Save Our Sequim” group’s scare tactics about the treatment center. After attending the Aug. 8 presentation by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, followed by a lengthy comment session, I wanted to compliment everyone…

Continue Reading It’s Not a “Methadone Distribution Facility,” It’s a “Medication-Assisted Treatment Facility”

The federal government’s move to ditch confidentiality regulations for substance use disorder treatment will increase patients’ exposure to law enforcement investigations, despite claims to the contrary. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is pushing through a proposal that would allow the courts to seize all patient records in the investigation of a serious crime—not…

Continue Reading SAMHSA Ushers in Law Enforcement “Fishing Expeditions” for MAT Patients

The surge in cases comes as the Trump administration sets out to eradicate HIV transmission by 2030. A cluster of HIV cases in a rural West Virginia county represents what public health officials have long feared amid the nationwide opioid epidemic. Cabell County has reported 74 cases since January 2018, primarily among drug users sharing…

Continue Reading ‘The Nightmare Everyone is Worried About’: HIV Cases Tied to Opioids Spike in West Virginia County

The manufacturers and distributors of opioid prescription painkillers have supplied billions of pills throughout the U.S. An investigative series by The Washington Post looks at the opioid epidemic through the DEA’s newly public database that tracks every pain pill sold to pharmacies across the country. Steven Rich, The Post’s data editor, joins Hari Sreenivasan with…

Continue Reading Tracking the Flow of Opioids Across America

On August 22 the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), in one of the biggest rulemakings undertaken in recent history, announced proposed changes to 42 CFR Part 2, the regulation which protects confidentiality for patients treatment in substance use disorder (SUD) treatment programs, including methadone. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for each of…

Continue Reading SAMHSA to Drop SUD Treatment Confidentiality Rule, Because “Times Change”

Expanding access to effective treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) is essential to staunching the opioid epidemic. Access to these treatments is particularly important in Medicaid, which covers a disproportionately large share of people with OUD (MACPAC 2017). Despite strong evidence supporting the effectiveness of pharmacotherapy for OUD (sometimes called medication-assisted treatment), research indicates that…

Continue Reading State Variation in Medicaid Prescriptions for Opioid Use Disorder from 2011 to 2018

Federal health officials proposed Thursday to revamp stringent patient confidentiality regulations from the 1970s to encourage coordination among medical professionals treating people caught in the nation’s opioid epidemic. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the goal is to make it easier to share a patient’s drug treatment history with doctors treating that person…

Continue Reading Feds to Revamp Confidentiality Rules for Addiction Treatment

There are no real winners in the opioid epidemic. But on August 26, a judge in Oklahoma handed a small victory to the state, which had sued opioid-maker Johnson & Johnson for its role in the morass. In the first such ruling to hold a pharmaceutical company responsible for the opioid crisis, the judge found…

Continue Reading Johnson & Johnson Must Pay $572 Million to Oklahoma for the Company’s Role in the Epidemic

A West Virginia doctor has pleaded guilty to illegally distributing prescription opioid medications. U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart says in a news release Muhammed Samer Nasher-Alneam pleaded guilty in federal court in Charleston last week. Nasher-Alneam operated the Neurology & Pain Center in Charleston. He admitted to writing prescriptions in July 2014 for oxycodone and methadone…

Continue Reading West Virginia Doctor Pleads Guilty in Pain Pill Case

Last month, I got an email from a dear old friend from Kentucky with devastating news. Her daughter Kathryn had died of an opioid overdose. I was stunned, though perhaps I shouldn’t have been. I knew she had long struggled with addiction: A talented artist and writer, she was prescribed an opioid for wrist pain…

Continue Reading Lost Lives and Long Odds: Inside STAT’s Decision to Take on Purdue

By Corinne Dolman, Director, Substance Use, Interior Health Getting “clean.” “Junkie.” “Addict.” “Dirty” needles. The language we use to refer to people with substance use disorders can elicit many negative stereotypes. Substance use disorders are more highly stigmatized than any other health condition. (more…)

Continue Reading Op/Ed: Stigma – Words Matter

The vast majority of the opioid overdose deaths in Massachusetts this year have been associated with fentanyl, according to the state’s Department of Public Health. Bryce Pardo of the RAND Corporation has worked with national, state and local governments on crime and drug policy. Pardo spoke with WGBH Radio’s Jeb Sharp about fentanyl and how…

Continue Reading Tracing Fentanyl’s Journey To The United States

August saw several regulatory moves by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA. Here are three which affect opioid treatment programs (OTPs) in particular: On 8/14, SAMHSA issued its proposed rule regarding Medicare coverage for medical-assisted treatment (buprenorphine, methadone, naltrexone), which will take effect in January. Only OTPs are allowed to dispense methadone…

Continue Reading Spate of Regulatory Moves from SAMHSA

In a final rule published August 16 in the Federal Register, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that information did not need to be collected on patients on methadone or buprenorphine receiving benzodiazepines as part of palliative care.  (It also said it didn’t need to include cancer care.) “Some commenters recommended excluding patients…

Continue Reading Hospitals Can Exclude Measuring Co-prescribing Methadone and Buprenorphine With Benzodiazepines in Palliative Care

In a “comment request” published in the Federal Register August 13, SAMHSA has reiterated its certification requirements for OTPs. Comments are due by September 12. For more information, go to the source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/08/13/2019-17261/agency-information-collection-activities-submission-for-omb-review-comment-request What’s up with 42 CFR Part 2? We are still awaiting the rulemaking announcement on 42 CFR Part 2 from SAMHSA. As…

Continue Reading SAMHSA Reaffirms OTP Certification Regulations

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) was released August 20, and surprised us by showing a decrease in treatment for illicit drug use in 2018, following an increase every year since 2015. Why was this? “While we do not know for certain, our thought is that the structure of the survey question…

Continue Reading NSDUH Shows Mysterious Decline in Illicit Drug Abuse Treatment in 2018

A major hole in the healthcare system has many hospitals and health systems fueling the nation’s opioid epidemic — unintentionally or not. To shed more light on the problem, Becker’s caught up with Gregory Rudolf, MD. Dr. Rudolf is board-certified in pain medicine and addiction medicine, and since 2004 has worked in a multidisciplinary pain management clinic…

Continue Reading Hospitals’ Blind Spots are Fueling the Opioid Crisis — Here are Specific Ways Leaders Can Address Them

The federal government wants to weaken confidentiality rules for patients with addictions. This means people who have been in any kind of treatment—even years ago—but will mainly affect methadone patients, because protections for other patients have already been chipped away at. Patients who have been treated for substance use disorder (SUD) are currently entitled to…

Continue Reading Your Methadone History Could Soon be Shared Without Your Consent

One resolution at this year’s meeting of the American Association of Family Physicians (AAFP) with family physicians’ inability to prescribe methadone in the primary care setting for treatment of opioid use disorder. Resolution co-author Taylor Boland, M.D., of the University of Wisconsin Department of Family and Community Health’s Madison Family Medicine Residency Program, told a…

Continue Reading AAFP Supports Methadone Treatment in Primary Care

The availability of medicine-assisted treatment has increased significantly on the North Olympic Peninsula over recent years. Since 2017 Olympic Medical Physicians in Port Angeles has developed a medicine-assisted treatment program, Nortch Olympic Healthcare Network, also of Port Angeles, started and then expanded its Suboxone program, and new clinics are opening soon. BayMark Health Services, awarded…

Continue Reading Medicine-Assisted Treatment for Addiction Offered on Peninsula

More than 2 million Americans struggle with opioid use disorder (OUD), a chronic relapsing medical condition, but access to medication-assisted treatment—the most effective therapy—remains limited. Buprenorphine, one of three drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat OUD, helps alleviate painful symptoms associated with the disorder. But few clinicians prescribe the drug. Ironically, federal…

Continue Reading Why Aren’t More People With Opioid Use Disorder Getting Buprenorphine?

Delaware’s Department of Correction says it’s expanding a program in prisons aimed at providing medication and therapy to opioid-addicted inmates. WBOC-TV reports DOC Healthcare Services chief Richman says a significant number of inmates enter Delaware facilities addicted to opioids. He says providing medication-assisted treatment programs can improve chances of reentry to society when they are…

Continue Reading Delaware Prisons to get Opioid Treatment Program

The National Institutes of Health will award 12 grants to form the Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN) to support research on quality addiction treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) in criminal justice settings nationwide. The awards, totaling an estimated $155 million from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of NIH, will support the…

Continue Reading NIH Establishes Network to Improve Opioid Addiction Treatment in Criminal Justice Settings

The government’s employee health plan will tighten its rules for covering prescription opioid painkillers starting this fall, the Trump administration said Monday. The announcement by a senior administration official was part of a White House drug policy briefing. The official spoke on condition of anonymity under the media coverage rules established for the event. The…

Continue Reading Trump Administration Tightens Opioid Prescriptions for Feds

Workers suffering from addiction are protected under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, unless they’re currently using drugs illegally—a legal wrinkle that creates uncertainty for employers and employees in the midst of a national opioid epidemic. Medication-assisted treatment is considered to be the most effective option for breaking opioid addiction while reducing withdrawal symptoms, said…

Continue Reading Employers Walk Fine Line With Opioid-Addicted Workers


If we are to effectively turn the tide on the opioid crisis, one of our top priorities must be integrating treatment for opioid addiction into the justice system. More than half of those in prison in the U.S. have been diagnosed with a substance use disorder, and 15 percent of those in jails and prisons…

Continue Reading The Importance of Treating Opioid Use Disorder in the Justice System


The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) wants to change its regulation requiring patients to consent to the release of their substance use disorder (SUD) treatment records. According to the SAMHSA proposal, which is now in the Office of Management and Budget and titled “Coordinating Care and Information Sharing in the Treatment of…

Continue Reading SAMHSA to Propose Changes to 42 CFR Part 2

Teens are more likely to use heroin if they misuse prescription opioids, a recent study of Los Angeles youth has found. The study did not make any conclusions about whether the association is causal, however. The researchers used a prospective longitudinal cohort study in 10 Los Angeles high schools. At baseline, all students had never…

Continue Reading Teens Who Misuse Prescription Opioids More Likely to go on to Heroin: Link Not Necessarily Causal

The new clearinghouse for the Family First Prevention Services Act has approved another parent support program and a substance abuse treatment model. Methadone Maintenance Therapy (MMT) uses medically-prescribed methadone to reduce the use of heroin and other opioids by people struggling with addiction and dependency. Its inclusion on the original list of programs for review…

Continue Reading Methadone Treatment and a Program for New Parents Approved for New Federal Child Welfare Law

In November 2017, the drug company Indivior received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for Sublocade, a once-monthly buprenorphine injection for patients with opioid use disorder. In December 2018, Braeburn Inc. received FDA approval for a similar product but could not sell it due to Indivior’s marketing exclusivity period. Typically, the FDA grants three years…

Continue Reading Orphan Drugs For Opioid Use Disorder: An Abuse Of The Orphan Drug Act

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Massachusetts Medical School-Baystate are among the scientists at a dozen institutions nationwide that will form the Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN), an ambitious, $155 million effort to improve opioid addiction treatment in criminal justice settings, the National Institutes of Health has announced. Source:…

Continue Reading UMass Researchers Receive $10 Million Grant To Study Jail-based Opioid Addiction Treatment Program

Soon after taking the bench in 2004, Yellowstone County District Court Judge Ingrid Gustafson noticed a troubling pattern. Many defendants passing through her criminal court in Billings, Montana, were repeat offenders with a substance use disorder that incarcerations had done little to address. Six years later, Gustafson founded the Yellowstone County Adult Drug Treatment Court…

Continue Reading Scientific Seminars Equip Judges to Counter Opioid Crisis

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (District Court) granted Braeburn’s motion for summary judgment, vacating the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) December 2018 exclusivity determination which blocked Brixadi from final approval through November 30, 2020. Braeburn’s application for final approval of Brixadi is remanded back to FDA for reconsideration “with deliberate…

Continue Reading U.S. District Court Orders FDA to Reconsider Application for Final Approval of Brixadi (buprenorphine) Extended-Release Injection for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder

In 2012, as the death toll from the nation’s opioid crisis mounted, drug companies shipped out enough of the powerful and addictive painkillers for every man, woman and child in the U.S. to have nearly a 20-day supply. In some counties, mostly in Appalachia, it was well over 100 days. An Associated Press analysis of…

Continue Reading As the Nation’s Opioid Crisis Grew, the Pills Got Stronger

When people who are dependent on opioids are incarcerated and denied access, they go into withdrawal—an often-painful condition with symptoms that include vomiting and diarrhea. Some incarcerated people have even died from this enforced “cold turkey.” Yet the huge majority of such people in US prisons and jails do not receive the medications that could…

Continue Reading Denial of Methadone Devastates Incarcerated People