11 minute read
Methadone Reform, Advocacy and You!
Coming Together for Methadone Reform
Yes, 2020 was a wild year, but it brought with it a unique and unprecedented opportunity for reforming the current methadone system. As COVID-19 took hold and the pandemic forced us into isolation, virtual platforms became the new “normal.” This ushered in a new era of methadone activism, advocacy, and organizing in an epic and inspired way! As we met for our Monday Night Methadone Call, one thing became increasingly clear: Improving access to methadone was more urgent than ever in combating the violences of the drug war. For far too long, lack of access and other barriers to treatment have plagued the current methadone system. These injustices have been ignored, explained away, or worse--just allowed to continue with little or no regard for those of us this very system is supposed to “help.” Throughout the pandemic, with supply chains breaking down, isolation, job loss, and even more fentanyl or other poisons being introduced into our supply, opioid deaths skyrocketed.
Throughout 2020 our work focused on reforming the system through activism and advocacy. And we have continued those efforts into 2021! We started this new year with a clear message--Methadone is our communities’ only current safe supply! It’s the gold standard of treatment for opioid use disorder and, as current and former methadone users ourselves, we have to do everything we possibly can to get methadone right! Failure is not an option. We continue our efforts to advocate and work to create real change! Read on to learn more about USU’s Methadone Reform team, our work past and present, and what’s to come and how to get involved and advocate for methadone reform.
In Solidarity, The Methadone Reform Team
What Has The Methadone Reform and Advocacy Team Been Up To? And What's to Come?
The past year was huge for our methadone reform team. We worked harder than ever in unabating ways, ensuring that far-reaching education, awareness, and advocacy through community-led efforts were on the forefront. Now, as we move into the new year, we continue to expand on those efforts, collaborating on actions, projects, and all our work in substantially impactful ways. We are acting out for methadone in 2021!
Digital Artwork by: Abby Coulter, USU Methadone Liaison
SAMHSA released relaxed (COVID-19) Guidelines for OTP's
With relaxed guidelines in effect after March 16th 2020, take home medication was increased dramatically. Stable patients were offered 28 take home doses at a time, and “less” stable patients were offered 14, to hopefully prevent patients from having to come to crowded clinics daily and to make methadone a more realistic option for people at risk of dying from poisoned supply. Telemedicine became permitted for counseling, medical, and other doctor appointments, and toxicology--aka piss testing--was scaled down. But while some clinics (OTP's) implemented these improved practices immediately, others dragged their feet. Worse yet, some clinics refused to take advantage of these improved federal guidelines at all, leaving the health of a marginalized population more vulnerable than ever to COVID-19 and overdose. USU immediately moved into action and began organizing, fighting to make our voices heard and advocating for our rights!
Photo Credit: Anonymous
#MethadoneIsOurSafeSupply
Our Open Demand Letter
We wrote an Open Letter to stakeholders, demanding that clinics implement the improved SAMHSA guidelines and pushing even further for methadone treatment reform. Over 140 different organizations signed on, and we were also joined by many prominent individuals, including the Obama-era Drug Czar Michael Boticelli. It also received significant media coverage throughout mainstream media outlets.We held a heavily-attended webinar, "It took a Pandemic to get a Take Home," which was and is the first and only one of its kind.
It Took a Pandemic to get a Take Home!
A Webinar For Us, About Us, By Us
We held a heavily-attended webinar, "Change at Last! Maintaining Methadone Take Homes & Safety". This was the first and only webinar of its kind addressing methadone, Covid-19 and rights of people on MMT.
Methadone Manifesto: Our collectively-written methadone manifesto is our living document recognizing the issues plaguing our communities and offering person centered solutions: We are the ones most directly impacted by the punitive methadone system, and our voices must be heard! The first edition of the Methadone Manifesto was released in April 2021 and can be found through the link listed later on in this article!
Community-Directed Research and Broad Patient Survey
Over the summer, our union conducted community-directed research, creating an online survey on methadone and COVID-19, asking for patients’ perspectives on how their facilities were implementing the relaxed SAMHSA guidelines. We collected 391 viable survey samples, offering a wealth of information to use for two additional projects. One paper that came out of this research has been accepted and is currently undergoing edits for final submission to the International Journal of Drug Policy. We will soon be completing a second paper, also to be submitted to prominent journals. The American Journal of Public Health has also requested we write and submit a third article, and we will begin our collective writing process soon.
Our methadone team presented our work to the California Department of Public Health
Liquid Handcuffs: A Documentary to Free Methadone
Live Stream Events
Promo Used for our Live Streaming of Liquid Handcuffs
We held two live streamings of the award-winning documentary Liquid Handcuffs. Each streaming was followed with impactful and informative question and discussion sessions with attendees and activist panelists, with the first featuring the producer and director Helen Redmon.
W E B I N A R
THE METHADONE REVOLUTION IS NOW: Don't miss your FIRST Dose!
The Methadone Reform & Advocacy Team held our April 13 Webinar event highlighting our Methadone Manifesto and it's first official release. If you missed this powerful event, we invite you to watch by clicking the link on the following page! If you attended our live event, Thank You and be sure to take our webinar survey by clicking the survey link on the following page as well.
Promo for The Methadone Revolution is NOW! Don't Miss Your FIRST Dose!
Methadone Manifesto
Check out the Methadone Manifesto HERE! https://sway.office.com/UjvQx4ZNnXAYxhe7?ref=Link
And Watch the Webinar Right HERE! https://attendee.gotoweb inar.com/recording/39065 39938993777423
Webinar Evaluation Here!https://forms.gle/e7H62iqFgPNb2eDi6
Methadone in the MEDIA
Written by members of the Urban Survivors Union’s methadone advocacy and reform team, composed of current and former methadone patients and allies, it centers the voices of methadone users.
Filter mag article written by Helen Redmond
Check Out the Article @
https://filtermag.org/methadone-manifesto/amp/
Methadone in the MEDIA (cont.)
- Nick Voyles
Filter mag article written by Methadone Reform Team member Nick Voyles who is also Hep C Liaison at Urban Survivors Union and on the Board at NCSU.
Check out the Article HERE @
https://filtermag.org/arbitrary-methadone-take-homes/amp/?fbclid=IwAR16mpUtqkLzZ2y9pUbTwvDLByqUxNIB54ZPqA16xKTXaS42bFzFrkNe_nI#
Why is Methadone Advocacy Important to Drug User Activism?
In the era of synthetic opioids, drug user communities have long felt the effects of the poisoned drug supply. COVID-19 amplified these effects, which plague our communities at an ever-increasing and alarming rate. As we continue into 2021, almost a year into the pandemic, the drug war continues its death toll. We are ordered to social distance without any real support from the institutions we are supposed to rely on, forcing many of us to use alone. We can see this reflected in the Official CDC Health Advisory released December 17, 2020 via the CDC Health Alert Network. (HAN) Specifically the most recent provisional data shows that the largest number of overdose mortality ever recorded, an approximate 81,230, took place in the 12 months ending May 2020. Significant worsening of overdose deaths are shown in the increases that appear in February, March, April and May of 2020, aligning with the declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic and shelter in place restrictions. Meanwhile, the resources we have relied on in the past (SSPs, clinics, social services, etc)--which were already struggling to meet us ‘where we are at’ prior to 2020--are failing to pick up the slack. The little institutional support that has been offered to the American people (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, stimulus checks) is inaccessible and inadequate for many of us. As drug user activists, we push for the decriminalization and legalization of substances, safe injection spaces, safe supply, and harm reduction treatment. Often, we are turned away and told these lofty goals are years away from being achieved. While it is important to imagine and create new systems, we continue to lose our leaders and comrades to the lethal combination of COVID-induced isolation and poisoned supply. Some of us might have been saved by methadone access, but were unable to receive adequate treatment because of the barriers and associated stigma. It’s those same barriers and stigma that keep even current methadone patients from receiving adequate services. As we mourn our lost comrades, we can’t help but wonder if they could have been helped if obtaining access to methadone wasn’t such a restrictive and humiliating process.
It is in the memory of those we have lost to the drug war that we fight to reform clinic policies. As experts in our own use, our perspectives and experiences are vital and need to be centered as we fight for the future of methadone access and clinic operations.
What are some of the things we are fighting for?
Effective IMMEDIATELY because of unsafe conditions caused by COVID-19, WE DEMAND:
We demand abolition of policies based on punishment instead of compassion.
Digital Artwork By: Abby Coulter, USU Methadone Liaison
Safety
We demand continued implementation of SAMHSA's relaxed COVID guidelines and immediate reinstatement of these practices at those facilities that have prematurely rolled them back. We demand access to PPE throughout the duration of the pandemic, including FREE masks. We demand overdose prevention, including requiring naloxone distribution at our clinics.
Evidence-based Treatment
We demand evidence-based treatment that sets us up for success! Initial starting doses of 30mgs leave many of us without even the slightest relief from withdrawal symptoms. This as well as the the lagging or stalled dose increase practices have been a long time road block for many of us at reaching optimal dose levels. With the emergence of synthetic fentanyl and its analogous, the problem has only worsened making therapeutic stable doses more important than ever.Stable dosing: People who are not able to succeed with methadone are often given doses too low to allow them to regain stability in their lives. Evidence shows that people are able to reach and maintain more stable, productive lives when they are on doses that work for them and can rely on the dose not being punitively changed.
No mandatory counseling: There’s no evidence to suggest that methadone with counseling is more successful than methadone alone. Regulations should mandate person-centered care. Among other things, this means no punitive dosing from either positive tests or from speaking up about our treatment! We deserve to be judged by our behavior, not the content of our urine. And, often, a positive urine test means that our doses are not stable enough, not that we need less access to lifesaving healthcare.Health and SafetyFREE MASKS (Access to PPE)Overdose PreventionRequire naloxone distribution
Accessibility and Disability Justice
Shorten intake procedures Third party dispensation. Some people with disabilities need a caregiver to pick up their medicine. Methadone should be no different! Tele-medicine Eliminate strict requirements for take homes Increased clinic hours. We shouldn’t have to show up at clinics at 5am every morning. Reduced urine screening Primary Care Provider prescriptions (Eliminate DATA X-waiver). The DATA X-waiver makes it harder for doctors to simply prescribe life-saving treatment to their patients.
Patient Rights and Autonomy
We demand the right to ask questions and get adequate, fact-based answers from well-trained and compassionate staff within our clinics. “Abstinence only” kills/Abstinence has a death toll. All Pathways to Treatment means ALL pathways of MAT as well! Some people push other forms of medication-assisted treatment over methadone, even though different pathways work for different people and in spite of the fact that methadone is the gold-standard treatment for opioid dependency) Patient Bill of rights Reproductive rights The rights of pregnant people: Methadone is the recommended treatment for pregnant people who are opioid dependent! It protects against overdose, poisoned supply, and many other risks associated with illicit drug use. What’s good for the parent is good for the baby! We insist on evidence-based pre-natal and neo-natal care. The rights of parenting people
Photo Credit: Peter Moinichen, USU Member
Privacy
Eliminate lock box requirements: Even the federal government recognizes that requiring us to buy and carry around lockboxes for our medicine makes it harder for the most vulnerable among us to get treatment while putting a target on our backs for those looking to steal our methadone. Lock boxes are especially dangerous for homeless sex workers, who have to work with lock boxes advertising that we are dependent on opioids and have valuable prescriptions with us!
How can YOU support our efforts?
Come to our meeting! You don’t have to be a patient (or even an opioid user) to join us. We need people amplifying the voices of those on methadone and advocating for patients’ rights and safety.
Meeting Info: Every Monday @ 8p ET
www.gotomeeting.me/usucall/methadone-mtg
Access Code: 289-450-221
Or dial in via phone U.S. @ +1(872)240-3212
