Jails, especially in rural areas, struggle to fulfill increasing role as opioid detox centers - Entrepreneur Generations

As opioid addiction rates have risen over the past decade, county jails all over the country have struggled with their increasing role as de facto opioid detox centers. "The problem is particularly hard for jails in more rural and semi-rural counties, which often have limited access to medications, to physicians who will administer it, and to follow-up programs that inmates can tap into upon release," Eric Westervelt reports for NPR. Between half to two-thirds of today's jail population has a drug abuse problem, and in some counties it's higher.

"In an effort to get a handle on the problem, more jails are adding some form of medication-assisted treatment, or MAT, to help inmates safely detox from opioids and stay clean behind bars and after release," Westervelt reports. "But there are deep concerns about potential abuse of the treatment drugs, as well as worries about the efficacy and costs of programs that jails just weren't designed or built for."

States with the biggest opioid problems, including Ohio Valley states, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, are expanding jail MAT programs the fastest, but only 10% to 12% of the nation's 4,000 jails offer it. Though a few jails offer long-term addiction "maintenance" drugs buprenorphine and methadone to inmates, "the majority of jail-based medication-assisted treatment programs today are limited to injectable naltrexone, given upon an inmate's release," Westervelt reports.

Jails could soon be under greater pressure to expand their drug treatment programs, after a recent federal appeals court in Boston ruled that a rural jail in Maine must provide an inmate MAT for her opioid use disorder. The inmate had been taking buprenorphine twice a day for five years, but the Aroostook County Jail officials didn't want to give her the meds while she was incarcerated, arguing that the drug is often trafficked among inmates. The inmate's attorneys argued successfully that withholding treatment violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the 8th Amendment of the Constitution, Willis Arnold reports for NPR.

from The Rural Blog http://bit.ly/2YC2Wpd Jails, especially in rural areas, struggle to fulfill increasing role as opioid detox centers - Entrepreneur Generations

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