Death for Drug Dealers, or Hope for Addicted People?
The Trump administration’s increasingly contradictory stance on the opioid epidemic could leave many without options
Ali Boast, a nurse at Magee’s Pregnancy Recovery Center (PRC), sits behind the wheel of a red Kia Sportage and sips from her coffee mug. It’s 7:00 a.m. on a Friday, and she’s left her home in Pittsburgh to drive north an hour to Butler, an old manufacturing town. Boast occasionally passes lines of bare trees, but primarily the scenery of these 35 miles is a suburban sprawl alternating between car dealerships and strip malls. Her final destination, a rural outreach center, is in one of these strip malls.
The PRC was one of the first clinics to use a whole-person team-based model for opioid-dependent pregnant women. This means the center addresses all parts of a patient’s care under one roof by providing medication-assisted treatment (specifically using buprenorphine), counseling, access to a peer navigator (who has experience in recovery), group sessions, prenatal care, delivery, and assistance with issues like housing and transportation.
When most people think of medication for opioid addiction, they think of methadone, which is a full agonist, meaning it allows a morphine-like response. Buprenorphine, on the…