What role does medication-assisted treatment play in the state in Proposition 36 cases?
UCLA has identified that Prop 36 clients don’t always routinely receive medication-assisted treatment. Ten percent are assessed as in need of medication-assisted treatment, and about 1percent receive it. One problem we face in California is bias against using medication assistance for those who are in treatment programs. People want clients to be drug free. Judges don’t like the idea of putting someone on medication when they’re trying to get them off other medications. So there is a stigma associated with using more medications. With medication-assisted treatment, however, being able to provide the service obviously improves results. We’ve been working with the counties. A few years ago, the Legislature provided some additional money to Prop 36—which has since been incrementally cut—where the counties would have to report to the state their plans to improve results for their programs; one was to increase the use of medication-assisted treatment. Of all treatment clients in California
