Delaying the Drug War: The New York Senators Shouldn’t Let the Congress Pass Three Drug-Free Measures Currently Available in Congress
The nation’s failed war on drugs could be dismantled with the help of three bills in Congress right now. The Medicaid Re-entry Act, EQUAL (Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law) Act and the MAT (Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment) Act all have bipartisan support and could be passed during the lame duck session of Congress. They should be acted on without delay.
There are several reasons for that, including stigma and a lack of understanding about how medications for opioid use disorder work. The biggest problem is that doctors don’t treat addiction in the first place. Lawmakers must find ways to ensure that addiction treatment enjoys the same reimbursement rates as other chronic conditions if they want to make a difference in the shortage. But eliminating the waiver would still be a crucial step in the right direction. The drugs that caused the epidemic shouldn’t be easy to get if you want to alleviate it.
The congressman who wrote the act is from New York and the House has approved the bill as part of a broader mental health package.
Narcan, a prescription-free medicine for the opioid overdose crisis, has not improved in two years, and does not prevent more deaths than last year
Drug maker Emergent BioSolutions is seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration to sell Narcan over the counter, without need for a prescription.
It is said that naloxone is a safe, effective and easy to use medicine that works if administered within a few minutes of an overdose with no potential for abuse. The medication counteracts the effects of opioids by binding to the same brain receptors.
“I’ve experienced being Narcaned, I want to say, about a half dozen times in my life. It kept me alive. You have to give people a chance to stay alive,” she says.
New data published Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 107,735 people died of a drug overdose in the 12-month period ending in July. That’s about 2,500 fewer deaths than the record high that was reached in March, marking a 2% drop over four months.
“There is today no excuse, no excuse absolutely for not having it everywhere available, when we know that’s one medication that can save tens of thousands of lives right now,” Gupta said.
Kramer says the goal is to have Narcan so widely available that it’s everywhere, ready in people’s purses, in school classrooms, in shops and businesses, whenever someone overdoses.
“I am very concerned about the price,” says Nabarun Dasgupta, drug researcher at the University of North Carolina who also works with a nonprofit that distributes free naloxone to active drug users.
“If we have this resource scarcity mentality, that this is an expensive product, then people will not take enough kits to do what they need to do,” he says.
But, he added, nonprescription Narcan won’t support some of the existing efforts — like grant-funded harm-reduction naloxone distribution programs and standing prescription orders from public health officials — that work to get the medication to many communities on the frontlines of the opioid overdose crisis.
Despite the improvement, drug overdose deaths were still 25% higher in July than they were two years earlier and more than 50% higher than they were five years earlier. And the types of drugs involved in fatal overdoses has changed.
The latest CDC data show that synthetic opiate were involved in more than half of overdose deaths. Psychostimulants, such as methamphetamine, were involved in nearly a third.
Drugs such as cocaine and heroin can be found with Fentanyl and methamphetamine.
“While we continue to see a flattening in overdose deaths, the Biden-Harris Administration remains focused on getting more people with addiction connected to the care they need, preventing fatal overdoses with naloxone, stopping illicit fentanyl from moving into communities, and going after drug traffickers’ profits through targeted sanctions,” Gupta said.
If we could get a more accurate picture of overdoses that do not end in death, it could be used to help predict where there would be more need for first responders as well as the life-saving drug naloxone, which temporarily reverses the effects of an opiate.
According to Gupta’s statement from Wednesday, emergency medical services responded to more than 390,000 activations nationwide that involved the administration of naloxone in the 12-month period ending in July – nearly four for every fatal overdose in the same timeframe.
Hundreds of thousands of pounds of drugs have been seized by the US Customs and Border Protection.
Rarely Get Life Saving Medicines That May Change People’s Lives During the Addiction Pandemic – The Case of Medication in the U.S.
If somebody has access to life-saving drugs, it reduces their mortality risk by half, according to a researcher.
As a result, public health officials say only one in 10 Americans struggling with addiction ever receive treatment. Studies show access to treatment is especially difficult for people of color.
The policies left millions of people vulnerable as the powerful, toxic synthetic opiate fentanyl spread in the U.S., making addiction even more dangerous.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which oversees addiction treatment, said that there were barriers to patients entering treatment.
Even though some people can get methadone, they are often forced to go to a government approved clinic multiple times a week to get it.
They have to go to the clinic daily and that’s a significant barrier.
“There was no evidence that diversion increased or risk increased, but there was evidence that people who gained access to treatment did better,” he said.
The rule- change proposed by the Biden administration would make those reforms permanent. It would also eliminate waiting periods for access to methadone and expand telehealth options even further.
Gandotra says SAMHSA also plans to eliminate stigmatizing language from federal rules for opioid treatment programs, including the term “detoxification.”
She credits methadone for allowing her to stabilize her life and go back to school, where she’s about to get her PhD in justice studies at Arizona State University.
But she also says she’s faced years of stigma and surveillance within the opioid treatment system, where she often felt less like a patient and more like a criminal.
During the pandemic, Russell says she was finally allowed to take home a month’s supply of her medication at a time. The closest clinic was a 45 minute drive from her home in Phoenix.
Only a limited number of certified opioid-treatment programs will be accepted for the supply of methadone.
Some addiction experts and government officials say the ultimate goal is for opioid recovery medicines to be regulated like medications for other chronic diseases.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/17/1143053704/people-addicted-to-opioids-rarely-get-life-saving-medications-that-may-change
Towards Adversarial Naloxone Access in Low-Energy Communities: The Role of Drugs in the Overdose Crisis
“I think it’s too early to say whether this [rule change] is a step toward that. We believe it is, but I have to say I’m not sure how far along we still have to go,” Gandotra said.
“For people who can afford the formulations of Narcan that are advancing towards over-the-counter status, I think this is a step forward to naloxone access,” said Dr. Brian Hurley, an addiction physician and president-elect of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. Adding more pathways for people to reverse overdoses is important.
The problem with getting naloxone to people in low-income communities, where the risk of overdose is highest, is solved only by paying for it.
She said that by priorizing a medication that can save lives, it helps to chip away at the stereotypes that people who use Drugs face and distract from efforts to confront the crisis.
“It means we’re starting to get past stigma itself, a driver of the overdose crisis, and starting to really address the fact that there are some solutions that are within our grasp,” she said. “We’re not helpless in the face of this crisis.”