Guidance recently issued by the American Society of Addiction Medicine states that patients should have access to the full range of FDA-approved medications. Regulatory agencies including state licensing boards, the ASAM said, should not “discriminate against the type of treatment an individual receives based on unjustified assumptions that certain treatments cause impairment.”
Scott began driving for Uber to make extra money for rehab and even tried decreasing his medication dosage. In the meantime, he said, he faced increasingly uncomfortable questions from his employer, who wanted him to stay on but wondered why he hadn’t gotten his license yet. He felt torn on what to do.
“I’ve had 100% success with my recovery,” he said. “What made it so hard is the science was on my side on this. What happens if I am right and then you put me into long-term treatment? Who knows what happens after that?”
He didn’t know that federal authorities at the time were actively investigating a similar scenario just two states over, in Indiana.
‘A very strong signal’
Though the protections afforded to people with substance use disorder by the Americans with Disabilities Act are more than three decades old, experts say the stigma and discrimination faced by people who use buprenorphine and methadone remains endemic.
Over the years, Friedman and her colleagues at the Legal Action Center have represented many clients who have been forced to make the choice between their legally prescribed medication and their livelihoods or access to services.
“We’ve personally witnessed people struggling with these orders to taper off,” she said. “Suffering and kind of agonizing about whether they should go back to an appropriate dose where they were thriving, or continue to taper against medical advice so that they can comply with some ill-thought-out and discriminatory order.”
Until recently, there had been little enforcement of ADA protections for people who take medication…
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