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Lawmakers Push DEA for Faster Action on Opioid Addiction Treatments

January 29, 2020

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) should expedite two new regulations to make opioid addiction treatments more readily available, three Democratic lawmakers said, noting that the agency was supposed to have issued such rules by October 2019.

In a letter to the DEA, two senators and a congresswoman asked the agency to expedite two regulations mandated under the SUPPORT Act. One would authorize special registration for healthcare professionals to provide medication-assisted treatment (MAT) via telemedicine; the other would improve access to MAT via use of mobile clinics.

“Inaction by the DEA is limiting access to potentially lifesaving treatments” for people with opioid use disorder, said the letter from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.).

They called on the DEA to develop the rules by the end of January, and to brief their staffs on the status — including when proposed or interim final rules would be publicly available — by Feb. 15.

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