Few public health challenges have been more daunting and persistent than the opioid crisis, which started because of egregious conduct by opioid manufacturers and now is driven by an influx of fentanyl. In my home state of New Hampshire — which has been at the forefront of this heartbreaking epidemic for more than a decade — too many promising futures have been snatched away. As we look to the next stage of bipartisan efforts to take on this challenge, we must quickly reauthorize and expand the SUPPORT Act, which expired Sept. 30. It laid a new foundation for our response to this epidemic — and now it can be used to increase access to the gold standard of treatment for addiction.
In 2018, we came together across party lines to pass the SUPPORT Act, which established vital infrastructure for communities in New Hampshire and across the country to treat addiction, help people recover, and prevent substance misuse in the first place.
While there are dozens of vital measures in this legislation, one of the most critical provisions helped expand access to medication-assisted treatment, the gold standard of addiction care. Access to this lifesaving medication, buprenorphine, has historically been limited by law and clinician reluctance, fueled by harmful stigmas surrounding addiction treatment.
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