Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT)

The Addiction and Public Policy Initiative at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law was established in 2018 through a generous grant from Arnold Ventures. Housed at Georgetown Law, the Addiction and Public Policy Initiative works at the intersection of public health and the law to advance a public health approach to substance use disorder and the overdose epidemic through legal and policy strategies that promote evidence-based treatment, harm reduction, and recovery. This reports highlights O'Neill's accomplishments over the last five years....

The Coordinated Opioid Recovery (CORE) Network, overseen by the Florida Department of Health, the Florida Department of Children and Families, and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration establishes a system of care for individuals suffering from substance use disorder (SUD). CORE provides a state-supported, coordinated system of addiction care for individuals with SUD and has provided approximately 550,000 services to support patients since its inception in 2022....

This report from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, details guidelines that local government officials, jail administrators, correctional officers, and health care professionals can use in providing effective health care for adults who are sentenced or awaiting sentencing to jail, awaiting court action on a current charge, or being held in custody for other reasons....

This document provides jail and prison administrators, program managers, medical staff in correctional settings, and reentry staff with a performance management framework to monitor medication-assisted treatment (MAT) in correctional settings....

Through the use of medications for addiction treatment (MAT), an individual’s substance use, withdrawal symptoms, and the physiological and psychological cravings can be controlled, enabling the person to begin treatment while in a correctional facility and be released as a person in, or on his or her way to, recovery. Research shows that that the use of MAT for Opioid Use Disorder in correctional settings is a cost-effective and life-saving intervention....

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....

LAPPA’s Model Access to Medication for Addiction Treatment in Correctional Settings Act, written in collaboration with the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at the Georgetown University Law Center and a cadre of subject matter experts, sets forth a comprehensive, evidence-based framework for ensuring that all incarcerated individuals with a substance use disorder be provided access to FDA-approved medication for addiction treatment in state and local correctional settings....

Inmates have recently begun fighting back against state prison policies that ban MAT medications in correctional facilities by arguing in court cases that these policies violate the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. As courts begin to rule in favor of the inmates, states will need to reconsider their policies on MAT in correctional settings to avoid future lawsuits. ...