Medication-assisted treatment is vital
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Editor,
According to “Confronting the Stigma of Opioid Use Disorder – and Its Treatment”, “Journal of the American Medical Association,” Feb. 26, 2014, increasing numbers of overdoses from prescription opioids, and heroin deaths, have caused heartbreak in communities across the country. More than 30,000 such deaths occurred in the US in 2010. Given the severity of this national epidemic, it is time to confront the stigma associated with opioid use disorder and its treatment with medications.
“By limiting care, this stigma is impeding progress in reducing the toll of overdose. The medications methadone and buprenorphine (“suboxone”) are a critical component of opioid addiction treatment. Major expansions of Medication Assisted Treatment with buprenorphine have been associated with declines in opioid overdose deaths of from 37 percent to 50 percent. Extended treatment that includes medications is a proven path to recovery and is associated with a lower risk of relapse. Such care is not only effective, but there is no other treatment approach supported by the same level of evidence. Nevertheless there is significant resistance to the treatment of opioid use disorder with medications. Some health insurers have imposed arbitrary limits on the duration of treatment of opioid use disorder with medications, and some clinicians have acted as though patients taking methadone or buprenorphine are still using illicit drugs, missing the critical distinction between addiction and the treatment of addiction. The stigma associated with opioid use disorder is unhealthy but it is not inevitable. The public can fight back against the rising threat of overdose by supporting broad access to effective treatment with medications. Affected neighbors, family members, friends and children need care — and they deserve the best care available. Their lives may depend on it.”
Here and now — instead of sorrow after it is too late, after people have been denied care, have taken their lives in desperation, or their untreated illness has harmed their toddlers; or a woman’s baby has died in utero or been born damaged — health care decision-makers still have time to educate themselves with lightning speed and discover within themselves what is required of them.
Ken Cairns
Polson
