There’s a treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) that literally saves lives. It has been proven to reduce the risk of overdose death by as much as 60% and reduce the risk of any cause of death by half. It is also one of the oldest and most rigorously studied treatments for opioid use disorder: medication treatment with methadone or buprenorphine (also known as opioid agonist treatment, or OAT).
Since the start of the overdose crisis, serious efforts have been made to expand the availability of OAT. Federal agencies have been proactively removing barriers to OAT and allocating resources to its expansion. OAT is also a core strategy that can be funded with the billions of dollars obtained by local communities through the global opioid settlement.
