A New Era for Methadone: Expanding Access to Treatment

The first big update to U.S. methadone regulations in 20 years is poised to expand access to the life-saving drug starting next month, but experts say the addiction treatment changes could fall flat if state governments and methadone clinics fail to act.  For decades, strict rules required most methadone patients to line up at special clinics every morning to sip their daily dose of the liquid medicine while being watched.  The rules, built on distrust of people in the grip of opioid addiction, were meant to prevent overdoses and diversion — the illicit selling or sharing of methadone.  The COVID-19 pandemic changed the risk calculation.  To prevent the spread of the coronavirus at crowded clinics, emergency rules allowed patients to take methadone unsupervised at home.  Research showed the looser practice was safe.  Overdose deaths and drug diversion didn’t increase.  And people stayed in treatment longer.  Methadone is an opioid.  When taken correctly, it can stop drug cravings without causing a high.  Numerous studies have shown it reduces the risk of overdose and the spread of hepatitis C and HIV.  But it cannot be prescribed for opioid addiction outside of the nation’s 2,100 methadone clinics, which on a given day treat nearly 500,000 U.S. patients with the drug.  The new federal rules allow stable patients to take home 28 days’ worth of methadone. Under the new rules, clinics will have broad discretion about which people qualify for take-home doses.  A long-time methadone patient shared “I never in a million years could have gone back to school, got my Ph.D., done research or taught — any of that stuff — if I had to go to a clinic every day,” and “It’s night and day in terms of your ability to live a stable, happy, quality life.”
Here's the link: US will let more people take methadone at home | AP News