Connecticut has put more than $4 million from opioid settlement funds into mobile methadone units, and a third of those units began serving northeastern Connecticut on Tuesday. The program targets a barrier that rarely appears in overdose statistics but quietly ends treatment for a lot of people: the drive.
Methadone is not like other prescriptions. Federal rules require patients to take it in person at a program certified by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, often daily in the early stages of treatment. It is a Schedule II substance and the most tightly regulated of the three medications approved for opioid use disorder. Unlike buprenorphine and naltrexone, a physician cannot write a prescription for it to be filled at a pharmacy.
