The Biden administration has taken a decisive step to combat cases of opioid use disorder (OUD) and surging overdoses among pregnant women, unveiling a plan to significantly expand access to medications that reduce withdrawal cravings. The program will focus on making drugs such as buprenorphine and methadone more widely available, as a way to reduce dependency and save lives, at a time when overdoses nationwide are at a record high of more than 108,000 annually. While these drugs are not a cure-all for addiction, they can be part of medication-assisted treatment (MAT) that combines medications and behavioral therapy and has proven to be both safe and effective for many individuals. OUD among pregnant women has quadrupled in recent years and is associated with low birth weight, preterm labor, and miscarriage. Pregnant women are more likely to die of an overdose than the average woman of childbearing age. Yet pregnant women were 17 percent less likely to be accepted for opioid treatment than women who did not mention a pregnancy to a treatment provider, according to a recent study. Under the Biden plan, judges will be trained to incorporate opioid replacement drugs into sentencing for pregnant women, as part of a court-mandated treatment plan. Further, addiction experts will focus on improving access to medication in communities with the highest rate of addiction, such as American Indians and Alaska Natives. This is a bold and important step by the Biden administration to make addiction treatment more readily available to those who need it most and integrate such care into the criminal justice system.
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Rosenthal Center for AddictIon Studies