By Jennifer D. Oliva, Taleed El-Sabawi, and Shelly Weizman
The tragedy of the ever-worsening drug poisoning and overdose crisis in the United States is compounded by a simple fact: We know how to prevent overdose deaths, and yet, the overwhelming majority of individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) lack access to the lifesaving, standard of care treatment.
Research demonstrates that the opioid agonist medications methadone and buprenorphine are the safest and most effective treatments for OUD. As the National Academy of Sciences explained in a 2019 report, these two medications reduce risk of death by up to 50 percent and are associated with numerous other benefits, including improved quality of life, reduced rates of use of other opioids, and reduced risk of contracting illnesses including HIV and hepatitis C.
However, during the worst drug poisoning crisis in U.S. history, which is now killing more than 100,000 people a year, the country’s outdated and restrictive federal regulatory schemes that pertain to methadone and buprenorphine present a pernicious and persistent barrier to accessing OUD medications.