Outside a liquor store in a rough part of Trenton, N.J., a one-eyed woman with sores on her face walked by, seemingly in a hurry. She says doctors will not treat her and that she lives her “lifestyle” by choice. The woman’s companion, a man with a green-dyed beard, said that when he has asked doctors for help quitting heroin, they referred him to rehab programs that turned out to have long waits or otherwise rejected him from admittance. Given addiction’s tendency to ravage a person’s life, it’s not clear how many of these are simply one-off misunderstandings between a busy doctor and desperate patient, the Atlantic reports. Something clearly isn’t working. Though opioid deaths have declined in some parts of New Jersey, in several counties—including Mercer, which surrounds Trenton—the death toll continues to climb.
Meanwhile, more than three-quarters of people with drug addictions in New Jersey go untreated. Overdose deaths in New Jersey rose by 21 percent between January 2017 and January 2018, compared to just 7 percent nationally. Had a doctor placed the one-eyed woman on a higher dose of Suboxone than one she claimed she was given, the medication might have worked. And the referrals to rehab programs her companion said he received from his doctors were not necessary, since any doctor can get licensed to prescribe Suboxone. Unlike the better-known methadone, Suboxone does not have to be prescribed at a special, carefully monitored facility. There’s an overwhelming consensus among experts on how to bring deaths down: Opioid addicts should be treated as soon as possible, and with medication. In almost every U.S. state, doctors, patients, and experts describe a situation in which too few doctors offer Suboxone for free or cheap. Instead, many addicted patients are funneled into rehab programs, which are often pricey, unavailable, or ineffective.