At the Somerset County jail in rural Maine, prisoners addicted to opioids used to receive a daily pill to keep cravings in check. But as soon as they were released, their access to the medicine ended.
As their cravings surged, they were re-entering society at high risk for withdrawal, relapse and overdose — dangers that newly released prisoners confront nationwide.
“A lot of these inmates are our neighbors and it’s in our best interest to assimilate them back into the community, but some would end up dying,” said the Somerset County sheriff, Dale P. Lancaster. “For me, that’s not acceptable.”
Hoping to change those grim outcomes, Sheriff Lancaster decided to try providing a different — and far less common — form of the medication, buprenorphine: an extended-release shot that subdues urges for about 28 days.
According to a recent analysis in the journal Health and Justice about his jail’s pilot project, the switch had a remarkable effect. The long-acting injection afforded newly released prisoners a crucial buffer period after they were discharged, with more time to set up continuing addiction treatment and stabilize their lives.
The jail’s experience is “an important step in showing where we as a society can go to cut back on people dying from this disease,” said Dr. Josiah Rich, a national expert in addiction and incarceration at Brown University, who was not involved in the project.