NJ Lawmaker's Bill Would Expand Opioid Users' Access To Methadone

CHERRY HILL, NJ — Congressman Donald Norcross joined healthcare and elected officials Monday at a drug recovery center in Cherry Hill to introduce the Opioid Treatment Access Act, a bill that aims to make it more convenient and accessible for patients to receive treatment for opioid use disorder in New Jersey and across the country.

The proposed House Democratic bill would increase access to and modernize the process of obtaining methadone to treat opioid use disorder (OUD). It would also aim to lower obstacles to treatment by making opioid treatment programs more accessible, allowing patients easier access to evidence-based treatment, and empowering them to spend more time living their lives and less time waiting in line at opioid treatment programs (often referred to as methadone clinics).

“People struggling with opioid addiction shouldn’t be stigmatized. They shouldn’t be forced to wait in lines every morning for treatment. They deserve dignity. They should be able to get their medicine from their pharmacist, just like everyone else does. If you can get the drug at a pharmacy, you should be able to get medicine to treat the drug misuse disorder at a pharmacy,” said Congressman Norcross, a member of the Bipartisan Addiction and Mental Health Task Force and the Education and Labor Committee’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee.

The increase in opioid overdose deaths in recent years got worse during the pandemic, with over 93,000 lives lost in 2020 alone.

According to Norcross' office, methadone, a medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration, is among the most effective ways to treat opioid use disorder. Historically, patients have needed to line up every morning at methadone clinics to receive daily methadone doses from opioid treatment programs.

Bill proponents argue that the process is often time-consuming, stigmatizing, and logistically difficult, especially for patients in rural communities where travel over a long distance to the nearest opioid treatment program may be necessary. These obstacles to treatment can make it difficult for patients to maintain employment.

“The treatment of opioid use disorder with methadone has a long history and robust scientific evidence supporting its effectiveness, but U.S. federal law limits its availability to heavily regulated and commonly inaccessible opioid treatment programs – a structure that has implications for access to, and quality of, care. The Opioid Treatment Access Act represents a thoughtful expansion of access to a life-saving, effective medication for many Americans with opioid use disorder,” said William F. Haning, MD, DLFAPA, DFASAM, president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

“Current federal restrictions on treatment medications for opioid use disorder, like methadone, often prohibit patients from accessing needed treatment. In order for our lifesaving, clinically proven medication treatments to work, patients need better access to them," added Kaitlan Baston, MD, MSc, DFASAM, division head of addiction medicine of Cooper University Health Care.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) became allowing patients to take home larger quantities of methadone at a time, which preliminary studies have shown to increase engagement with treatment with few incidents of misuse. Though SAMHSA’s exemptions were recently extended by another year, these changes are not permanent and even with the SAMHSA exemption patients must go through opioid treatment programs to receive methadone.

Opioid Treatment Access Act is supported by the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), Shatterproof, the Kennedy Forum, NAMA Recovery, the National Council of Mental Wellbeing, and the New Jersey Association of Mental Health and Addiction Agencies (NJAMHAA).

Companion legislation is being led in the Senate by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA).