On a bone-chilling morning this month, 18 men in a medium-security Rhode Island prison sat at stainless steel topped tables, placing both hands palms down, as if they were about to receive a manicure. They received the anti-addiction medication buprenorphine under their tongues, administered by a nurse and double-checked by guards, with military precision. This half-hour routine happens daily in a program developed at the Rhode Island Department of Corrections to ensure that the clear strips of buprenorphine the inmates need to maintain recovery and stay focused on rehabilitation aren’t diverted to black markets inside or outside the prison, Stateline reports.
Two-thirds of the nation’s 2.3 million inmates are addicted to drugs or alcohol, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Only a small fraction of those who need treatment behind bars receives it. The vast majority of the nearly 2,000 state and federal prisons and 3,100 county and municipal jails do not offer addiction treatment that includes any of the three medications — methadone, buprenorphine and Vivitrol — approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. That is changing slowly. An estimated 120 jails in 32 states and prison systems in 10 states now offer evidence-based treatment for opioid addiction, triple the number in 2018. Rhode Island started providing medication-assisted treatment, or MAT, for opioid addiction in its unified prison and jail system in 2016. With the help of Gov. Gina Raimondo and a $2 million annual budget, it is doing more than any other state to ensure that all inmates who need addiction treatment have an opportunity to get the best care available. That means offering all inmates with an opioid addiction, whether or not they previously were in treatment, a choice of one of the three FDA-approved medications, plus counseling.