WASHINGTON — The federal government is cracking down on drug courts that refuse to let opioid addicts access medical treatments such as Suboxone, said Michael Botticelli, acting director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, on Thursday.
Drug courts that receive federal dollars will no longer be allowed to ban the kinds of medication-assisted treatments that doctors and scientists view as the most effective care for opioid addicts, Botticelli announced in a conference call with reporters.
“Part of what we’ve been working on at the federal level is to strengthen our contractual language around those grants,” he said. The new language will “show that if you are getting federal dollars that you need to make sure that people, one, have access to these medications [and two], that we’re not basically making people go off these medications, particularly as a participant of drug court.”
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The drug courts, he said, will be provided the following notice: “Under no circumstances may a drug court judge, other judicial official, correctional supervision officer, or any other staff connected to the identified drug court deny the use of these medications when made available to the client under the care of a properly authorized physician and pursuant to a valid prescription and under the conditions described above.”
The federal policy tying funding to access may not affect all of Kentucky’s drug courts. They’re mostly funded by the state, according to Leigh Anne Hiatt, a spokeswoman for Kentucky’s Administrative Office of the Courts. She noted that a few counties, however, have received some federal funding for their drug courts.
