Model Shows Better Access to Methadone Could Save Lives

WOULD SAVE LIVES –

June 19, 2024 – In France, the majority of people with an opioid use disorder — 87% — receives access to medication designed to treat it. In the United States, where more than 100,000 people are dying annually from drug overdoses, less than 20% of people with opioid use disorder receive methadone or buprenorphine. A new study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy highlights differences between the two countries — and a prime opportunity for the U.S. to better address an opioid epidemic that continues to ravage American families and communities.

“Americans are dying at persistently unacceptable, unthinkable rates,” said lead author Honora Englander, M.D., an addiction medicine expert at Oregon Health & Science University. “This doesn’t need to be political; this is science. Methadone is a life-saving medication that is inaccessible to most people who need it in the U.S. because of current regulations. Policymakers can change that.”

Overdose rates are 32 times lower per capita in France than in the U.S., she noted.

Englander, professor of medicine (general internal medicine) in the OHSU School of Medicine, is spending a year conducting addiction and public health research at le Centre Hospitalier Vinatier in Lyon as a Fulbright Scholar. She said she is most surprised by the ease at which people with addiction can access care, compared with the firmly regulated landscape she’s accustomed to in the U.S.