Allegheny County Jail To Provide Opioid Use Disorder Medication In Response To DOJ Investigation

On November 30, 2023, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania settled a disability discrimination complaint from the federal Department of Justice by agreeing to offer all medication-assisted treatments (MAT) approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to all individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) who are booked into the Allegheny County Jail (ACJ). Currently the FDA has approved three such medications: buprenorphine, naltrexone, and methadone. Before October 2022, ACJ only administered buprenorphine (as Suboxone, Sublocade, and Subutex) as continuation treatment. It had required most individuals using methadone as maintenance treatment to go through medically supervised withdrawal. Only pregnant inmates had been . . .