Medication For Opioid Use Disorder

Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD)

Proven effective

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• Is replacing the term Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) because the medications are the primary treatment and psychosocial treatments assist the medications.

•  Is proven to be more effective and reduces deaths from opioids such as heroin, fentanyl and pain pills.

• Is now standard of care due to the proven benefits over older methods that rely only on treatments that do not use medications. Not offering MOUD or refusing to treat people on medications is not appropriate.

• Abstinent based treatment has a 70-80% failure rate at 2 years.

• It NOT just replacing one addiction with another. Patients on stable doses of buprenorphine or naloxone do not show evidence of addiction. Most importantly, they don't die, relapse, commit criminal acts, or get hepatitis C, HIV or endocarditis as often.

• Patients on MAT are more capable of successful recovery than those who are "abstinent". I use the quotes, because people taking MAT medications as prescribed are abstinent.

• Addiction has never been defined by the drug or amount of it being used. It has always been defined by what happens to the person that is using the drug (or behavior). The vast majority of people who drink alcohol or use drugs are not addicted to them. If problems begin to happen, they change their behavior. People with addictive disorders suffer significant problems related to their use but do not/cannot stop.

• Current medications proven effective for OUD are buprenorphine (Suboxone), methadone, and injectable naltrexone (Vivitrol).

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