S moke S ignals
JANUARY 1, 2019
9
Clinic to offer medication-assisted treatment
OPIOIDS continued
from front page
Guest speaker Eric Martin, a
nationally certified addictions
counselor, has 32 years of experi-
ence and is also an international
presenter and recovery advocate.
“The United States is the number
one overdose death country in the
world,” Martin said. “Drug overdose
deaths are highest amongst young
people.”
National nonprofit Mental Health
America ranked Oregon as the
state with the highest rate of men-
tal health and substance use prob-
lems. Gov. Kate Brown declared
addiction and substance abuse to
be a public health crisis in March.
In response to the nationwide
opioid epidemic, the U.S. Senate
passed an $8.4 billion opioid pack-
age bill with much of the federal
funding going to medication-assist-
ed treatment, Martin said.
“It was the largest amount of cash
for addiction services ever,” he said.
“Some of that is for medication-as-
sisted treatment with suboxone and
methadone, the largest expansion
ever. … But methadone clinics are
very expensive to start up,
which is a good reason to
look at suboxone. It’s also
incredibly safe.”
Methadone has been used
to treat heroin addiction
since the 1950s and sub-
oxone, a combination of
buprenorphine and nalox-
one, was first approved for
use in the United States in
2002.
The Health & Wellness
Center hopes to begin of-
fering medication-assist-
ed treatment in January.
Rowe said it will not re-
place abstinence-based program-
ming, just add to what is already
in place.
“This is just another tool in our
toolbox,” she said. “This is another
part of the program.”
When it comes to providing access
to treatment and recovery support
services for those with substance
use disorders, Oregon ranked last
in the nation.
“The critical part of treatment
is right at the beginning,” Martin
said. “Oregon has some of the best
treatment in the United States,
Photos by Danielle Frost
Nationally certified addictions counselor Eric Martin discusses efforts to
reduce opioid dependence during a town hall-style discussion in the Tribal
gym on Thursday, Dec. 13. He also conducted a staff training at the Tribe’s
Health & Wellness Center earlier that day.
Nationally certified
addictions counselor
Eric Martin is gifted a
Pendleton blanket by
Executive Health Services
Director Kelly Rowe and
Chemical Dependency
Counselor Joe Martineau
after a town hall-style
discussion on efforts to
reduce opioid dependence.
but a lot of people think it is awful
because of the long wait for a bed.
… It takes two to six months. By the
time the bed opens, that person is
usually long gone.”
He added that if a person can get
into treatment, many opioid-de-
pendent people drop out within
72 hours of starting the program
due to the severity of withdrawal
symptoms.
“That is why we have methadone
and suboxone,” Martin said. “These
medication programs were started
because the counselors couldn’t get
Grand Ronde
Housing Department
Board seeks community input
The Grand Ronde Housing Board is inviting Tribal members and Trib-
al housing residents to provide input to assist its members in carrying
out its advisory role to the Housing Department and Tribal Council
regarding policy guidance. The Housing Board meets at 3 p.m. the third
Thursday of each month in the Housing Department conference room,
28450 Tyee Road. Its chair is Kristy Criss-Lawson. For more informa-
tion, contact the Housing Department at 503-879-2401. n
them to stay in a program.”
Although almost every
recovery program includes
medication-assisted treatment for
up to a few months, opioid-depen-
dent individuals often need it for
much longer to avoid relapse.
“This has been frowned upon
in the recovery community and
we have stigmatized and rejected
them,” Martin said. “The problem
people have with drug treatment
for opioids is the length of time it
takes. The average is two years.
There is a common belief that
people are on medication-assisted
treatment for decades. … Instead
of rejecting them, we should bring
them closer and hopefully inspire
them to a completely clean and
sober lifestyle. Pushing them away
leads to isolation.”
Martin said that if President
Donald Trump gets his wish and
builds a wall separating the United
States and Mexican borders and
the heroin supply coming from
Mexico gets cut off, it will lead to
far greater problems as addicts will
seek synthetic opioids like fentanyl,
which is 80 to 100 times stronger
than morphine.
Pharmaceutical fentanyl was
originally developed for pain man-
agement of cancer patients and
applied in a patch on the skin.
However, it is also used illegally
to increase heroin’s potency and
disguised as a prescription opioid.
According to the Drug Enforcement
Administration, many users believe
that they are purchasing heroin,
which often results in overdose
deaths.
“Some types are so strong that
overdose medications like naloxone,
which reverses the effect of an opi-
oid overdose, doesn’t work,” Mar-
tin said. “This is another reason
why we need medication-assisted
treatment. If you take drugs after
suboxone, you don’t get high. If an
addict tries to use OxyContin or
Vicodin, nothing happens.”
To be prescribed suboxone, a per-
son must be in withdrawal.
“We have a psychiatric nurse
practitioner on board who has pro-
vided these services (elsewhere) for
years,” Rowe said. “The idea is that
if we are paying for this, the ability
to bring it here and have it local at
the clinic is helpful. This is a tool so
people don’t have to travel to Dallas
or Beaverton to get the recovery
services they need.”
After the meeting concluded,
a panel discussion was held that
included Chemical Dependency
Counselor Joe Martineau, recov-
ering addicts, Grand Ronde Tribal
members Denise Haskins and
Ronald Johnson, and Health &
Wellness Dr. Paul Vitt. All agree
that medication-assisted treatment
would be helpful to add to the clin-
ic’s services.
“This is different than our absti-
nence-based programming,” Rowe
said. “We want to look at how we
can help the most people in our
community. The conversation we’ve
had tonight informs us. We’re all
about wanting to make people well
and healthy.”
In addition, in late October Trib-
al Council approved hiring a legal
firm to represent the Grand Ronde
Tribe in a multi-district opioid liti-
gation on a contingency fee basis. n