Addressing the opioid crisis cannot stop at providing better access to treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD), expanding and enhancing harm reduction efforts, and reimagining the role of law enforcement, as explored previously in this blog series. The response must go further to make treatment and harm reduction more effective, by acknowledging the opioid epidemic as a reflection of the conditions of the whole society, identifying those conditions, and addressing them head-on. A whole-person response to OUD and other substance use disorders needs a well-coordinated whole-of-government response to address myriad societal issues that are critical to effective drug treatment, including, but not limited to, housing, education, economic development, and tax policy.
One of the key tools for combatting the opioid overdose epidemic, which claimed more than 100,000 lives in the last year, is the use of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). MOUD is a treatment approach that uses medications to relieve withdrawal systems or, in the event of a relapse, block the effects of opioids. MOUD is a vital tool to help individuals dealing with opioid use disorder (OUD) manage their recovery, and is considered the gold standard for treatment.
Harm reduction in the context of the opioid crisis is focused on preventing overdose and infectious disease transmission by working with people who use drugs without moral judgment. Far too often, the public health imperative of harm reduction is blocked by federal policy, state laws, and other structural barriers anchored in the “war on drugs” that reduce the effectiveness of harm reduction efforts. To maximize the potential of harm reduction requires a whole-of-government approach, involving coordination across levels of government.
There is a well-established whole of government response to drug policing centered around the “war on drugs.” However, the existing response is largely built on flawed policies that have resulted in mass incarceration, structural racism, and lagging improvements in treatment and harm reduction related to the opioid crisis. Policy changes must be considered to replace acknowledged failures and reimagine the whole of government response to drug policing.
People who need opioid use (OUD) treatment in the United States are often not receiving it—at least two million people with OUD are experiencing a treatment gap that prevents or hampers their ability to receive life-saving care and support. This reality reflects structural, policy, and legal misalignments common to the entire US health care system, but that are especially present for behavioral health needs like substance use, and are exacerbated by other challenges related to stigma, lack of employment, and fragmented or nonexistent care coordination.
Shane Reader from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health, recently published research in Drug and Alcohol Dependence that reveals patterns in implementation, facilitates future evaluations, and produces a roadmap for the dimension reduction of further policy surveillance datasets related to harm reduction and drug use.
The Center for Public Health Law Research published data on the Center’s Prescription Drug Abuse Policy System legal data site PDAPS.org on state laws limiting prescriptions for opioid analgesics. This dataset presents state-level statutes and regulations across all 50 states and the District of Columbia in effect between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2019.
The data were created in collaboration with subject matter expert Dr. Kao-Ping Chua, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, University of Michigan Medical School, who conceptualized this project.
An estimated 65 percent of the United States prison population has an active substance use disorder (SUD). Providing comprehensive substance use treatment to incarcerated individuals has been shown to reduce both drug use and crime upon release. Treatment is a critical intervention to prevent opioid overdose deaths, which the CDC estimates increased by 15.4 percent, from 70,029 in 2020 to approximately 80,816 in 2021. Medications like methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone are an important part of a comprehensive approach to addressing opioid use disorder (OUD).
