Why Is Addiction Treatment So Hard to Get?

The use of one pre­scrip­tion drug to kick an ad­dic­tion to an­oth­er is coun­ter­in­tu­it­ive, but medi­cine coupled with ther­apy is in­creas­ingly com­mon in treat­ing opioid ad­dic­tion—and re­flect­ive of a school of thought that opioid ad­dic­tion is best ad­dressed not as a crime or as a mor­al fail­ing, but as a dis­ease.

But while the tech­no­lo­gies and mind-sets have shif­ted, the pub­lic policies gov­ern­ing opioid ad­dic­tion have moved more slowly, to the point where, for some pa­tients, laws are stand­ing between them and the new treat­ments, which couple ther­apy with med­ic­a­tion.