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In Northwest,
solutions bring new challenges | | | First in nation to decriminalize, Oregon slowly disburses treatment funds | Oregon voters in 2020 passed Ballot Measure 110, which decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs, including heroin, and directed millions of dollars in tax revenue from legal marijuana sales toward addiction treatment. According to a recent hearing, however, state officials underestimated the amount of work needed to assess the deluge of applications from treatment and service providers seeking funding. Meanwhile, overdoses have continued to rise. Rep. Lily Morgan of Grants Pass, Oregon, said in the hearing that her community has seen a 120% increase in fatal overdoses. Though the delay in funding disbursement has frustrated many, more than 16,000 Oregonians have accessed services thanks to funds from Measure 110, according to U.S. News & World Report and the Drug Policy Alliance. |
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| | Rewards for folks who stop using drugs | Addiction often mushrooms in places where economic opportunity has diminished. Thus it makes sense that compensating people for staying drug-free — for instance, with grocery gift cards — is an evidence-based means of supporting people in recovery. In Newport, Oregon, an outpatient clinic called Phoenix Wellness Center is on the forefront of deploying this strategy. “It’s about using people’s internal motivations and rewarding them for making these achievements or making steps towards progress and change,” the clinic’s co-owner Ashliegh Ramirez said in an interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting. She and her co-owners are members of the Siletz tribe; offering incentives is a normal tribal practice, which they are now offering to a broader population. The slow disbursal of funds from Measure 110 currently limits the pace at which this strategy can take effect, but it represents an experiment that is attracting attention from researchers who will study its efficacy in Oregon. |
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| | Unequal access to treatment for patients of color | Researchers at Washington State University have found that the average age of death from opioid overdose is lower for people of color relative to non-Hispanic whites; in other words, folks of color are dying younger. Meanwhile, addiction treatment is not equally accessible to all. During the pandemic, federal authorities adjusted requirements for physicians treating patients with opioid use disorder, allowing evaluations to take place via telemedicine rather than in person. This improved patient access to the life-saving medicine buprenorphine. Methadone, another common and evidence-based treatment for opioid addiction, is more heavily stigmatized and monitored than buprenorphine — and patients of color are more likely to receive methadone rather than buprenorphine, as compared to their white peers, according to researchers at the University of Washington. |
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Ohio, a center of the national crisis
| | | Addiction treatment curriculum piloted | Recently, a federal judge ruled that three of the largest pharmacy chains in the U.S. must pay more than half a billion dollars to two counties in Ohio. Pending appeals, those funds could eventually fund much-needed addiction treatment in a state that ranks fourth in the nation for overdose mortality. (Neighbors West Virginia and Kentucky top the list.) In addition to the prospect of new funding, there are initiatives in the Buckeye State that give some treatment advocates hope. Dr. Kimberly Hu and her colleagues at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center have developed, implemented and evaluated a training curriculum for third-year medical students on treatment for opioid use disorder. In U.S. healthcare, such treatment is typically separated from primary care, and addiction is rarely a focus of study for medical students. In a presentation for the American Psychiatric Association, Hu noted that both future patients and future doctors stand to benefit from enhanced addiction training in medical schools. |
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| | Legislation would decriminalize fentanyl test strips | This summer, two Ohio State University students died after taking counterfeit pills laced with the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl. These deaths have sparked renewed support for a bill making its way through the state’s legislature. The bill, HB 456, would decriminalize test strips that can detect the presence of fentanyl in a given substance. Currently, such strips are regarded as drug paraphernalia, and a person caught possessing or using one in Ohio could serve up to thirty days in jail. Ohio’s News 5 reached out to lawmakers and an array of state groups for their position on the bill, and found that all — even the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association — support HB 456. |
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| | Using technology to coordinate the response | States with high overdose death rates like Ohio and West Virginia have enlisted help from a variety of sources to fight the crisis. One example is Cordata, a technology firm that aims to coordinate the efforts of local police, medics and mental health providers, identifying hot spots where support teams can proactively reach out, and automatically nudging first responders to check back with patients. Read More on OZY |
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Bright spots in strange places
| | | For some, the pandemic helped | When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it collided with America’s addiction crisis as well as the increasing prevalence of fentanyl in illicit drugs. Yet, for some in recovery, the pandemic was an unlikely gift. Heroin addiction had blighted Donna Dibo’s life, but this welder by trade and mother of five in Youngstown, Ohio, said the pandemic was a “blessing in disguise” because the number of online 12-step recovery meetings skyrocketed. Dibo spent the early pandemic period attending two to three meetings daily, as compared to as few as two per week before. Read More on OZY |
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| | Why addiction treatment is better in blue states | We’ve all heard politicians tout the opioid crisis as a nonpartisan issue. After all, does it matter whom you vote for when your loved one is struggling with a potentially fatal disorder? Unfortunately, while the crisis may affect both sides of the political divide, addiction treatment varies greatly depending on location. As one example, Democratic-led states are more likely than their Republican-run counterparts to cover methadone treatment through Medicaid. Some Republican leaders have started to take action, however. In 2017, then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed a bill that allowed for-profit methadone clinics to operate in the state, and permitted wider availability of naloxone, the overdose-reversal medicine. Read More on OZY |
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| | Hope for pain patients | Concerns about the addiction risk of opioid painkillers have seen many pain patients lose access to their prescriptions. OZY has reported the story of Lelena (not her real name), who was forced into acute withdrawal when she was denied access to the medications that treat her fibromyalgia. Unfortunately, her story is not unique. The Food and Drug Administration has since published drug-safety guidelines to indicate that patients like Lelena, who are dependent on prescription opioids, should not have their medication abruptly discontinued, and that patients who require discontinuation of opioid medication should receive individualized tapers to minimize withdrawal. Read More on OZY |
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Community Corner
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What do you think state and federal officials should do about the addiction and overdose crisis? |
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ABOUT OZYOZY is a diverse, global and forward-looking media and entertainment company focused on “the New and the Next.” OZY creates space for fresh perspectives, and offers new takes on everything from news and culture to technology, business, learning and entertainment. Curiosity. Enthusiasm. Action. That’s OZY! | |
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