Most U.S. Drug Treatment Centers Don’t Give Teens Addiction Medication, Study Says

Topline

A limited number of residential addiction treatment centers across the U.S. are using an FDA-approved medication to treat opioid use disorder in teens, a study published Tuesday found, despite the rising number of overdose deaths among young people.

Only one in four adolescent residential treatment centers in the U.S. are using buprenorphine to … [+] treat opioid use disorder in adolescents, a study out Tuesday found.

AP/Elise Amendola

Key Facts

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, examined how many adolescent treatment centers in the U.S. were providing buprenorphine—the generic name for Suboxone, one of the three FDA-approved drugs to treat those with opioid dependence and the only one approved for use in adolescents 16 and older.

One in four adolescent residential treatments centers across the U.S. are using the medication to treat opioid use disorder, the study found, despite the rising number of adolescents using opioids.

Of the 354 residential treatment centers nationally, approximately 160 of them served adolescents across the U.S., and just 39 offered buprenorphine to adolescents, researchers said.

Only 12 facilities offered the drug to adolescents younger than 16, the study found—while buprenorphine is not approved in the U.S. for individuals under 16, researchers noted there is no evidence to suggest major safety concerns for young people who use the medication.

Researchers noted that the lack of accessibility meant the average parent would need to call nine facilities on the list of U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in order to find a treatment center that offered buprenorphine to adolescents—and to find a center that would offer buprenorphine to adolescents under 16, parents would need to call 29 facilities.

Tangent

Along with buprenorphine, the FDA has also approved methadone and naltrexone for the treatment of opioid dependence. All three are effective at reducing opioid use and related symptoms, according to the National Institutes of Health. Methadone—which has been used for opioid use disorder since 1947—and buprenorphine are equally effective, the NIH said. Naltrexone—the newest form of medication for opioid use disorder—has limited evidence to support its effectiveness, according to the NIH. It’s also difficult to initiate treatment among active opioid users because it requires full detoxification, the health agency noted.

Big Number

109,000. That’s approximately how many people died in 2022 from overdoses in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Because the data is provisional, it’s unclear how many deaths were from or involved opioids, but in recent years, a growing share of overdose deaths have been from synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Experts have previously warned that the opioid epidemic could claim as many as 1.2 million lives in the U.S. and Canada alone by 2029 if no action is taken to address the growing epidemic.

Key Background

Drug overdose deaths have reached record highs in recent years, largely because of the spread and wider availability of opioids. Opioids are commonly used as painkillers to treat severe pain but they can also be highly addictive. Opioids can be abused both as a prescription medication as well as a street drug such as heroin. The numbers of opioid-related deaths have been on the rise in recent years with the National Institute on Drug Abuse saying that 80,411 people died of an overdose involving an opioid in 2021. That number is up from approximately 10,000 deaths in 1999. Health experts have warned the rise of synthetic lab-made drugs like fentanyl are particularly concerning for the opioid epidemic. Synthetic drugs are much more potent compared to drugs like heroin, and even small quantities of synthetic drugs like fentanyl can trigger a fatal overdose. Those synthetic drugs have been linked to a majority of deaths among young people, according to a CDC report. The report—which examined overdose deaths among people aged 10 to 19—found deaths increased 109% from a five-month time period in 2019 to the same time period in 2021. The CDC found that approximately 90% of the overdose deaths involved opioids and 84% involved illicitly manufactured fentanyls.

Crucial Quote

“It’s the one medication that’s approved for use in adolescents, and it’s underused in facilities taking care of kids with the most severe opioid use disorder,” said Todd Korthuis, the head of addiction medicine at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine and one of the authors of Monday’s study. “It’s hard to imagine getting adolescents with opioid use disorder off fentanyl without buprenorphine.”