addiction treatment

Medicaid enrollees struggling with opioid addiction are having a hard time accessing certain treatment options.

Some addiction treatment clinics offer IV infusions of a mix of supplements — including something known as NAD. The treatment isn't proven to work and is not FDA-approved for addiction.

When medical bioethicist Travis Rieder tried to taper off pain medication after a roadway accident, he was disappointed by his doctors' reaction: "Everybody had a reason to send me to somebody else."

Many users now mix opioids with stimulants such as meth and cocaine. Researchers say efforts to get doctors to reduce opioid prescriptions may have driven some users to buy meth on the street instead.

Once a tiny specialty that drew mostly psychiatrists, addiction medicine is expanding its accredited training to include residents from specialties like family medicine who see it as a calling.

While opioids get all the attention, rural communities struggle with substances like meth and alcohol too. One clinic is building up capacity to treat all of them, using both medicine and counseling.

This medicine to treat opioid addiction is hard to come by — only a fraction of doctors can prescribe it. So some people trying to quit a heroin habit are turning to the black market for help.

Last year, 280 Coloradans who died of a drug overdose had methamphetamine in the mix. That's up sharply from 2016 and more than five times the number in 2012.