On Tuesday, several dozen organizations that deal with addiction and other health issues, Mr. Biden’s secretary of health and human services, Xavier Becerra, called for “acting urgently” and eliminating the rule that doctors go through a day of training before obtaining federal permission to prescribe buprenorphine. Many addiction experts also demand that rules already relaxed during the pandemic be abolished so that patients do not have to go to medical clinics or doctors’ offices.
Although many programs offering treatment, naloxone, and other services to drug users have been reopened at least in part as the pandemic has lengthened, many others remain closed or severely curtailed, especially if they have started with a meager budget.
Sara Glick, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Washington, said a survey of about 30 syringe exchange programs she did last spring found that very early in the pandemic it temporarily closed. After reopening, she said many programs reduce services or the number of people they can help.
“Because health departments spend so much on Covid, some programs have had to cut their budgets,” she said. “This may mean you see fewer participants or interrupt their HIV and hepatitis C testing.”
At the same time, an increase in HIV cases has been reported in several parts of the country with heavy-duty drug use, including two cities in West Virginia, Charleston and Huntington and Boston. The West Virginia legislature last week passed a law that places new restrictions on syringe exchange programs, which, according to proponents of the programs, will include many.
The American Rescue Plan Act of Mr. Biden provides $ 1.5 billion for the prevention and treatment of drug use disorders, as well as $ 30 million in funding for local services that benefit people with addiction, including syringe exchange programs. The latter is important because while federal funds are largely not spent on syringes for people who can use drugs, the restriction does not apply to money from the stimulus package, according to the Office of Drug Control Policy. Last week, the government announced that federal funding could now be used to buy rapid test strips for fentanyl, which could be used to check for drugs mixed or cut with fentanyl.
Fentanyl or its analogues are increasingly being detected in counterfeit pills sold illegally as prescribed opioids or benzodiazepines – sedatives such as Xanax used as an anti-anxiety drug – and especially in meth.
Northeastern states worst hit by opioid deaths in the past year saw some of the smallest increases in deaths in the first half of the pandemic year, with the exception of Maine. The countries hardest hit included West Virginia and Kentucky, which have long topped the list in overdose deaths, but also western states such as California and Arizona and southern states such as Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee.