Treatments increasing for opioid patients

<p><strong>The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette</strong></p><p>Lack of training, resources and understanding of its potential have hampered the use of one important strategy in the fight against opioid addiction — medication-assisted treatment. There are signs that is changing.</p><p>Indiana’s prisons and the Allen County justice system appear to be a bit ahead of the curve in implementing this addiction-fighting tool, though there is much more to be done within our region.</p><p>In Massachusetts, a recent law allows prisons to offer addicted inmates medications to relieve the symptoms of opioid withdrawal. Four prisons have begun to dispense buprenorphine, also known as Suboxone, one type of drug that can block pain and cravings. The Massachusetts prison system will eventually make two other medication-assisted treatment drugs — methadone and naltrexone — available along with other types of treatment. National media hailed Massachusetts’ law as one of the few progressive state policies on medically assisted treatment in the nation.</p><p>But through its Recovery While Incarcerated program, the Indiana Department of Correction has offered “a full continuum of clinical care and medication assisted treatment options in all adult correctional facilities” since September 2017, including detox, maintenance and reentry programs, according to Margaux Auxier, the department’s communications director.</p><p>In response to changes in state law that mean more drug offenders who formerly would have gone to prison remain in local jails, a system has evolved in Allen County to identify those local drug and alcohol offenders who could benefit from medically assisted treatment.</p><p>“The influx from state facilities and the sheer number of inmates” with substance-abuse problems meant “something had to be done,” Sheriff David Gladieux said Tuesday.</p><p>A key to identifying inmates who need medically assisted treatment has been Allen County’s array of courts that deal with offenders who may have substance-abuse problems, said Tom Allman, vice president of addiction services for Park Center.</p><p>Park Center identifies those who need help through liaisons who monitor courts that focus on drug cases, veterans, mental health and DUI offenses, Allman said. Several times a week, center staffers assess inmates, and they arrange to transport those who could be helped to treatment facilities after their release from jail.</p><p>Before such transportation arrangements, Gladieux said, “many times they wouldn’t even make it to the facility” before relapsing into substance abuse.</p><p>Outside of those identified through the justice system, however, it appears many substance abusers who could benefit from those medicines are not getting help.</p>