Today, Rep. Donald Norcross (D-NJ) released the following statement on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) new rule to expand life-saving medications for opioid use disorder:

“I applaud the Biden-Harris Administration and SAMHSA for their commitment to combatting the opioid epidemic and ending the stigma around treatment for opioid use with this new rule change. It’s clear that the flexibility offered by the new rule has the potential to improve the quality of life for individuals throughout their recovery journey. However, the need for my bipartisan Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act (MOTAA) remains as prevalent today as it was yesterday. The new rule announced today by SAMSHA highlights the need to further expand access to care and treatment at a time when we are still suffering staggering losses due to the ongoing opioid epidemic. Unfortunately, it stops short of expanding the needed access to methadone for a vast majority of the population. We know how effective and successful methadone is and that’s why we need to expand access. More than 6.1 million Americans are living with opioid addiction, yet there are only approximately two thousand opioid treatment programs across the country. In rural areas, it takes patients nearly 50 minutes to drive to the nearest clinic for the treatment they rely on to live. That’s unacceptable, we need to expand access and we need to expand it now. As I have long said, we must end the monopoly on this life-saving medicine that only serves to enrich a cartel of for-profit clinics that don’t trust doctors and stigmatize patients. Even the cartels know that improving access to methadone saves lives, but they refuse to threaten their bottom line. The American people deserve better, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass MOTAA into law.”

In March, Rep. Norcross and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) led the introduction of MOTAA, which would increase access to care for people experiencing opioid use disorder by reforming outdated regulations governing the prescription and dispensing of methadone. Methadone is one of the most effective medicines used for the treatment of OUD and is considered an “essential medicine” by the World Health Organization. Rep. Norcross and Sen. Markey also sent a bicameral letter to SAMHSA in support of expanding access to opioid use medication and highlighting the barriers that many still face when seeking treatment.