Issues To Focus On
Massachusetts Restores Methadone Funding
Highlights from a compromise budget plan unveiled by House and Senate leaders
on Thursday
The $22.3 billion plan would:
- Restore Medicaid funding for 36,000 people under MassHealth Basic;
- Preserve a popular prescription drug coverage program for the elderly;
- Repeal the voter-approved Clean Elections law;
- Tighten the Quinn Bill, which boosts the pay of police offices who obtain college degrees;
- Cut state aid to local communities by up to 20 percent;
- Expand the MCAS appeals process for special education students;
- Block the closing of any courts by expanding their districts;
- Create a public safety council to help the state cope with biological or chemical attacks;
- Preserve a per-patient nursing home fee;
- Fully fund methadone clinics;
- Boost how much some current state employees and all new employees pay for insurance.
Source: Massachusetts House and Senate.
Associated Press, June 19, 2003, Thursday, BC cycle.
State & Local Wire.
The work of MA NAMA and especially Dana Moulton has kept funding for methadone for this year. Several thoudsand methadone patients discharged to the streets in March and April will be able to return to methadone. While this may be viewed as a victory of sorts not all patients discharged earlier this year will find their way back to the program. However considering the alternatives Moulton concedes that it is a victory and that advocates have to be prepared for next year when most certainly Massachsetts will have the same pressure to cut public funded health.
Dana Moulton is not the only Massachusett advocate that has been busy this Spring. Moulton’s Co-Director Maureen Neville has been working to organize methadone patients within the clinics in the state. And she has pulled off a big victory as HMI will be organizing patients throughtout the summer.
‘Dark days’ state budget is approved; ‘Shock is over, pain setting in’. TELEGRAM & GAZETTE, June 21, 2003 Saturday.
Oregon Patients Not as Fortunate
Several years ago the Oregon Health Plan brought several thousand new patients into treatment that previously did not have access to methadone. As of April 1, 2003 all of these patients were discharged from treatment with no hope of accessing treatment in the near future. Oregon advocates have noted that dirty politics were at work as no public hearings were held. This was done secretly and then announced! Methadone treatment was not the only procedure or service to be axed and most of the services cut were those accessed by the poor. It is estimated that about 3000 methadone patients were returned to the streets in Oregon.
Addicts cope with life without methadone. Associated Press, June 22, 2003.
Meeting with Dr. Andrea Bartwell of ONDCP
On June 6, 2003 Joycelyn Woods and Walter Ginter travelled to Vermont to meet with Dr. Andrea Barthwell of ONDCP. Barthwell was announcing the President’s committment to add significant funding to drug treatment through a voucher system directly to states. The idea says Dr. Barthwell is to get services to people who previously did not have access and to provide perhaps more intensive services for those in treatment who need them.
Although both Woods and Ginter were a little uncomfortable at the location of the announcement which was Bill Wilson’s birthplace in Vermont you can see the pictures and read the ONDCP Press Release.
SAMHSA & ONDCP Letter.
Photo Album of Vermont.
Methadone Deaths Continue
West Virginia reports increases in methadone deaths. Most of the deaths are from pain patients who are receiving methadone instead of oxycontin because of the problems with it. However with methadone the focus is on methadone clinics. NAMA will continue to watch for increasing overdose deaths due to methadone.
Methadone kills more than Oxy, mercer cop says It’s ‘worse than OxyContin ever dreamed of being’. Charleston Gazette (West Virginia), June 22, 2003.
Vermont Jails Continue to Have Problems
Less than 2 years ago the focus was on the criminal justice system in Vermont when 2 patients were denied their methadone — one was ordered by a judge and the other patient was pregnant. However now a death has occurred and methadone is implicated in the death. NAMA will continue to monitor the situation.
Keeping watch. Burlington Free Press (Burlington, VT), June 19, 2003.
Research Reveals That Drug Addiction May be a Developmental Disorder
A Yale supports the growing theory that suggests that drug addiction should be thought of as a developmental disorder. The changing circuitry of teenagers’ brains appears to leave them especially vulnerable to the effects of drugs and alcohol.
Drug use may also greatly influence a neural imbalance that occurs as teenagers grow into adults. Brain circuitry that releases chemicals that associate novel experiences with the motivation to repeat them develops far more quickly during adolescence than the mechanisms that inhibit risky behaviors. While these circuits are important in reaching adulthood that also make youth more vulnerable to drug and alcohol use.
Drug Addiction as a Developmental Disorder .New York Times, June 24, 2003.
News Bits
New Director Named to NIDA
Dr. Nora Volkow of Brookhaven National Laboratory has been named as the new director for NIDA. Volkow is known for her brain research on addiction and it was her brain slides that the previous director Dr. Leshner used for his talks on addiction as a brain disorder.
Press Release, National Institute on Drug Abuse.
New Gay Recovery Group for NAMA
Paul Bowman of Boston NAMA has organized the first gay and trans-gender opiate recovery group called Gay Opiate Recovery or GOR NAMA. West Coast: Roxanne Baker, CMA NAMA Chapters Coordinator and President of NAMA NorCAL will be the West Coast Director, Steven Davis (Detroit, MI) will be the Director for the Central Region and Paul Bowman is the East Coast Director.
A Yahoo Group you may join it by sending a message to
[email protected]
The web site is at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gayopiaterecovery
New Director Named to NIDA. NIDA Press Release, February 23, 2003
Medical Maintenance to Open in Albany New York
Albany has been waiting for 18 months to start a medical maintenance program due to requests being held up because of the increasing methadone deaths. CSAT informed NAMA representatives at the methadone conference in April that the long awaited program has been approved. It will probably be fall before the program can begin to take patients because of the long wait. However their will be some 20-30 Albany patients very happy in the next months as the first group that has been waiting begins the program.
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Get The Patient’s Rights Poster The Patient’s Rights Poster is a Patient Support and Community Education Project. Download a copy in English or Spanish. Patient’s Right Poster – Spanish
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New Policy Statement
Get the new Policy Statement “On the Practice of Diluting Methadone”.
INTERNATIONAL
UK Users Sue the Government Because they were Refused Methadone in Jail
HEROIN addict prisoners are to sue the Government for millions of pounds in
compensation.
Thousands of serving and former prisoners could be eligible for pay outs of
up to �1,500 each over claims they were refused methadone by prison doctors when
they were jailed.
A group of addicts is launching an action that could open the way for tens
of thousands of cases – presenting the already cash-strapped prison service with
a multi million-pound bill.
The Home Office has vowed to “vigorously” defend the claim. A senior Prison
Service official accused lawyers for the prisoners of trying to exploit the
“compensation culture”, saying law firms were trying “to make money out of the
taxpayer”.
The prisoners claim they suffered withdrawal symptoms after being refused
the methadone they had been prescribed by GPs or drug clinics before they were
jailed.
Lawyers for the group claim the prison authorities’ failure to give the
prisoners methadone is a breach of NHS guidelines.
Inmates ‘denied drugs’ to sue. by Hugh Dougherty.
The Evening Standard (London), June 23, 2003. SECTION: Pg. 8.
Some Good Press from Canada
It is so rare to see something positive in the newspapers about methadone. An article from Calgary discusses how methadone saves lives.
‘The clinic saved my life’: Joe. Methadone facility a relief for heroin addicts. Calgary Herald (Alberta, Canada), June 20, 2003.