Congresswoman Kuster, Senators Murray and Warren Press Drug Enforcement Administration on Long-Overdue Steps to Expand Access to Opioid Addiction Treatment

Press Release

Last Friday, Congresswoman Annie Kuster (NH-02), Bipartisan Opioid Task Force co-chair; Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP); and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent a letter to Uttam Dhillon, Acting Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), pressing the DEA to take long-delayed action to increase access to opioid use disorder treatment. In the letter, the Members called out the DEA for failing to take steps to increase access to addiction treatment that have been on the Administration's unified agenda for nearly two years, while communities across the country have struggled with the opioid epidemic.

"We write today to urge the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to take all available actions to address the opioid crisis, including expediting two key regulations concerning addiction treatment: first, authorizing special registration for health care providers to provide medication-assisted treatment (MAT) via telemedicine , and second, issue DEA regulations related to improving access to MAT through the use of mobile clinics. Both regulations have remained on the DEA's unified agenda for nearly two years, with no rule promulgated for either. We ask that the regulatory process move forward quickly, since both provisions will help those on the frontlines better respond to the pressing opioid crisis," wrote the Members.

The Members specifically pressed the DEA about its failure to meet the deadline Congress set in 2018 for the Administration to take steps that would allow more health care providers to offer medication-assisted treatment via telemedicine. They called on the DEA to finally take this step and to allow access to treatment to be expanded through new mobile methadone clinics.

"Inaction by the DEA is limiting access to potentially lifesaving treatments for people with OUD. We ask the DEA to take the necessary steps to promulgate these rules by the end of January, including requesting an exemption from the Presidential Executive Order on Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs, if that Executive Order is preventing the DEA from promulgating these new regulations. We ask you please brief our staffs on the status of these rules if you expect proposed rules or interim final rules will not be publicly available by February 15. To not make progress quickly on these already-acknowledged priorities is to ignore the critical role actions like these would play in curbing the opioid crisis," the Members concluded.

Kuster, Murray and Warren send letter to Drug Enforcement Administration over delay in action to help people struggling with opioid addiction

Members call out two specific steps to expand treatment access that have gone unresolved despite being on DEA's agenda for two years

DEA missed October deadline requiring it to increase access to medication-assisted treatment via telemedicine

DEA has yet to allow licensing of new mobile methadone clinics

Members "To not make progress quickly on these already-acknowledged priorities is to ignore the critical role actions like these would play in curbing the opioid crisis."

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