KEEP AN EMERGENCY STASH –
April 28, 2026 – The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration works with states to ensure that access to opioid use disorder medication isn’t disrupted. States can approve emergency measures to allow people more flexibility to obtain their treatments. Cordelia Stearns, another co-author of the editorial, saw these access issues play out in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
Stearns, the chief medical officer at High Country Community Health in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, said the first calls to her clinics were for buprenorphine. She said people who needed the medication traveled over mountains and crossed rivers to get to her clinics.
“The things that my patients did to be able to access their bupe,” Stearns said, “it was astonishing.”
The authors of the editorial recommend that the federal government work with pharmacies to allow patients to take home more medication during emergencies. They suggest keeping a registry of patients with recovery medication prescriptions who can get treatment when evacuating across state lines.
And they propose factoring the need for such medications into disaster response plans, whether that means stocking rescue vehicles with buprenorphine, adding backup generators to opioid treatment clinics, or training volunteer responders.
