The U.S. Surgeon General and Gov. Charlie Baker will join public health providers and about 400 law enforcement officials from 28 states and Canada next week in Boston to promote fighting opioid addiction through prevention and treatment instead of arrest and incarceration.
Surgeon General Vice Adm. Jerome Adams, Baker and Arlington police Chief Frederick Ryan, co-chairman of the Police-Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative, will be among the speakers at PAARI’s second annual national Law Enforcement Summit Dec. 6-7 at the Harvard University Medical School Conference Center.
“Our goal is to eliminate the stigma that opioid addiction is a moral failure rather than a chronic illness, to drive down deaths associated with overdoses and to break down barriers to recovery,” Ryan said yesterday.
Currently, there are three federally approved treatments for opioid addiction: methadone, Suboxone and Vivitrol. But there is a limit to the number of patients doctors can prescribe Suboxone to, Ryan said, and methadone can be given out only in a clinic, which patients may not always be able to get to.
“Then that option’s off the table,” he said. “These are some of the challenges and stigmas you don’t find with other chronic conditions. It’s the stigma that drives bad policy.”
In a statement yesterday, Baker said: “While there is still much work left to do, our administration has partnered with many stakeholders and all levels of government to make progress fighting the opioid epidemic, including support from the behavioral health community and law enforcement.
“We look forward to participating in PAARI’s annual forum, collaborating with local officials and identifying new ways to address this public health crisis in Massachusetts,” he said.
Massachusetts is one of only eight states where opioid overdose deaths are decreasing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
From 2016 to 2017, the number of deaths here dipped 4 percent, a trend that continued in the first nine months of this year, when there were 1,518 confirmed and estimated opioid-related overdose deaths, compared to 1,538 over the same period last year.
Opioid prescriptions also have decreased by 35 percent since the state launched a prescription-monitoring program in 2016.
And last month, the governor filed legislation seeking $5 million to support a regional, multiagency approach to the interception of fentanyl — an opioid 50 times stronger than heroin — by municipal police departments.
