The Economic Consequences of Opioid Addiction in America

supposed to lessen opiate cravings. Heroin-assisted treatment involves a medical
professional providing pharmaceutical grade heroin to addicts in a controlled way that
allows for the offender to be slowly weaned off of the drug (Blanken et al., 2012). The
benefits to both treatment types clearly involve preventing the addict from craving the
drug; in methadone treatment the drug is replaced by methadone from which the addict
could be weaned. The heroin-assisted treatment also prevents cravings and withdrawal
by providing the safest form of heroin that has not been mixed or cut with any other
substances on the street. The heroin-assisted method also allows a medical
professional to control the dosage and slowly lower the amount until the addict no
longer needs the drug.
Because there is a high likelihood of people suffering from opiate withdrawal while
incarcerated it would benefit the addict and society if the offender were to receive some
type of treatment while incarcerated. Even though jails and prisons are not completely
drug free they are certainly more controlled than out on the streets and provide a good
opportunity for daily interaction between drug offender and treatment personnel. There
is also a documented increase in the percentage of released inmates who continue to
seek treatment if they received some form of treatment while incarcerated (Mitchell et
al., 2009).
Medical treatment for opiate addiction has proved to be very successful and there are
several potential new treatments still being studied by researchers (Kuhn et al., 2014). It
is possible to cure people of opiate addiction even though the road might be a long and
difficult one. It is well-known that addiction is cognitive, emotional, and neurobiological
(Blanken et al., 2012), so a criminal justice or treatment program that does not address
all three areas of addiction will likely fail.
There are some who believe that treatments like those involving methadone or even
heroin in controlled pharmaceutical doses does nothing except exacerbate the problem
by ignoring the social and psychological reasons for addiction and replacing one
addiction for another in the case of methadone (Kuhn et al., 2014). This view does have
merit because of the three pronged monster that addiction is known to be. Thus far this
paper has shown how opiate addiction can be handled more effectively through drug
courts and medical treatment but that leaves the emotional or social arm of addiction.
Groups like Narcotics Anonymous can fill that void by being a place to go for fellowship
with others who understand the problems that each other face. Narcotics Anonymous
(2014) claims that their primary goal is to be a place of recovery and support.
When considering whether or not treatments like methadone therapy merely replace
one addiction for another it should be noted that methadone is viewed by addiction
specialists as an effective treatment (Kuhn et al., 2014). Despite this belief there is a
place for drugs like buprenorphine because it works differently than methadone in that it
blocks the body’s opiate receptors from receiving other opiates and acting in a way that
is just enough to keep withdrawal symptoms from appearing (Kuhn et al., 2014).
Because it is different in its strength at the opiate receptors it might be a better solution
as it does not create the same high as heroin and is therefore less likely to be abused.
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