Criminal Justice

February 16, 2022 | Controlled Substances, Criminal Justice, Fentanyl, Law Enforcement, Opioids, Reports & Studies, Synthetic Drugs, Trafficking

The Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking, established under Section 7221 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, was charged with examining aspects of the synthetic opioid threat to the United States—specifically, with developing a consensus on a strategic approach to combating the illegal flow of synthetic opioids into the United States. This final report describes items involving the illegal manufacturing and trafficking of synthetic opioids, as well as the deficiencies in countering their production and distribution, and includes action items directed to appropriate executive branch agencies and congressional committees and leadership....

February 8, 2022 | Controlled Substances, Criminal Justice, Harm Reduction, Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT), Naloxone, Opioids, Prescription Drugs, Public Health, Recovery, Substance Misuse, Toolkits, Treatments

The 2022 AMA-Manatt Toolkit builds on a previously published roadmap by providing actionable resources that states can use to take specific actions in six policy areas: (1) Increase access to evidence-based treatments to help patients with a substance use disorder (SUD); (2) Ensure access to addiction medicine, psychiatry, and other trained physicians; (3) Enforce mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) parity laws; (4) Improve access to multidisciplinary, multimodal care for patients with pain; (5) Expand harm reduction efforts to reduce death and disease; and (6) Improve monitoring and evaluation....

December 10, 2021 | Controlled Substances, Criminal Justice, Harm Reduction, Opioids, Prescription Drugs, Public Health, Recovery, Reports & Studies, Substance Misuse, Treatments

The Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University recently released a three-part report about the multi-district opioid litigation that has been making its way through the court system for many years. Part 1 of the trilogy, focuses on a series of principles governing the use of the settlement funds: (1) spending money to save lives; (2) using evidence to guide spending; (3) investing in youth prevention; (4) focusing on racial equity; and (5) developing a fair and transparent process for deciding where to spend the funding....

July 20, 2021 | Alcohol, Controlled Substances, Criminal Justice, Law Enforcement, Opioids, Prescription Drugs, Reports & Studies, Substance Misuse, Treatments

A newly released report from the United States Department of Justice indicates that among all state and federal prisoners, nearly four in 10 self-reported using drugs and three in 10 self-reported consuming alcohol, at the time of the offense for which they are currently serving a sentence in a correctional facility. Many of those individuals meet the clinical definition of having a substance or alcohol use disorder - 40% for substance use and just over 20% for alcohol. Of that population, 33% of state and 46% of federal prisoners, who met the criteria for having a substance or alcohol use disorder, reported participating in a treatment program after their admission to a correctional facility....

August 26, 2020 | Controlled Substances, Criminal Justice, Law Enforcement, Opioids, Prescription Drugs, Public Safety, Reports & Studies, Substance Misuse

The Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics recently released statistical briefs on selected policies and procedures of local police departments and sheriffs’ offices, based on data from BJS’s 2016 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey. The tables show national estimates and distributions by population served on topics such as average hours of officer training by type of training, written community-policing plans, annual operating budgets, written directives for officer conduct, written documentation for officers’ display or discharge of firearms, authorized less-lethal techniques and restraints, and requirements for external investigations of deaths or use of force....

January 22, 2020 | Controlled Substances, Criminal Justice, Fact Sheets, Opioids, Substance Misuse

Medical legal partnerships (MLPs) integrate lawyers into the health care setting to assist physicians, case managers, and social workers in addressing the factors that influence a patient’s social determinates of health and reducing the treatment disparity within communities. A total of 333 health entities, including hospitals and health systems, children’s hospitals, Health Resources and Services Administration -funded health centers, and Veterans Affairs medical centers, have developed MLPs in 46 states.  When legal services are combined with medical care to address the social needs of patients, studies show that patients: (1) are admitted to the hospital less frequently; (2) are more likely to take their medications as prescribed; (3) report lower levels of stress and experience improvements in mental health; and (4) spend less money on health care services because they are going to the hospital less and investing more in preventative care. Additionally, with MLPs, clinical services are more frequently reimbursed by public or private payers due to MLPs’ assistance with health insurance access....

November 25, 2019 | Criminal Justice, Drug Courts, Opioids, Reports & Studies

The NJOTF was created by Resolutions of the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) during their annual meeting in 2017. The Conferences recognized the need to respond to the mounting stress on criminal and family court dockets impacting state court systems across the country. Through collaboration with multiple sources inside and outside government, including experts on treatment, prevention and data, the members of the Task Force approved a comprehensive set of policy and best practice recommendations. This report is centered around these findings and recommendations. ...