Federal Agencies Just Saying No to Abstinence?

PHARMAPILLS –

May 31, 2024 – For as long as the federal government has worked to support substance use treatment, it has operated on a simple premise: Addiction medicine’s objective is to help people using drugs stop — completely and forever. In public statements, official agency guidance, new regulations, and even in instructions to pharmaceutical companies about how to develop new addiction treatments,

“Ideally, you don’t want people to expose themselves to a situation that could lead to overdoses and death,” said Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, casting every instance of illicit fentanyl use as potentially life-ending. “The obvious metaphor is Russian roulette: Instead of taking 28 doses of fentanyl a week, you take four — it can still kill you, but the probability goes down. So it’s just a simple statistical matter.” Related: At Las Vegas conference, methadone clinics blast idea of doctors prescribing directly

The changes reflect the fast-evolving climate in addiction medicine, in which harm reduction, or practices meant to limit the most acute harms of substance use among active drug users, is increasingly in vogue.