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At a time when the U.S. government is trying to deal with a nationwide opioid epidemic, many jails across the country are only now rolling out medicines to help inmates overcome addiction. And most of those jails dispense only one of the drugs currently available.
One in three older Americans with Medicare drug coverage is prescribed opioid painkillers, but for those who develop a dangerous addiction there is one treatment Medicare won't cover: Methadone is the oldest, and experts say, the most effective of the three approved medications used to treat opioid addiction. It eases cravings without an intense high, allowing patients to work with counselors to rebuild their lives.
You'd think it would be impossible to kill 100 people a day, every day, without inducing widespread shock and deafening demands for action. But that's what opioids have been doing for the past decade, and Americans have given it only passing attention.
In this March 8, 2017 photo, Ashley Gardner, 34, takes a dose of methadone at Counseling Solutions of Chatsworth, Ga. Gardner, a 34-year-old woman, said her addiction started in the seventh grade when she wanted to numb the pain after she was sexually assaulted.
I recently returned from a car trip to Southern California. As I crossed over the state line on Interstate 15, I was met with an large electronic sign stretched across the road reading, "Zero Tolerance Zone."