Rhode Island State health officials say preliminary figures show drug overdose deaths declined in Rhode Island in 2017 for first time since the opioid crisis hit the state five years ago.
And a study published this week in JAMA Psychiatry says one reason for the drop is a new treatment program for opioid addiction in the state’s prisons.
Rhode Island Public Radio’s health reporter, Lynn Arditi, took a closer look at the program.
The Intake Center at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston is often a revolving door for people addicted to opioids.
“I think I was incarcerated four times in the last ten years,’’ said Casey, a tree cutter who is recovering from heroin addiction. (He asked us not to use his last name to protect his family’s privacy.) Casey said he became addicted to opioids after he hurt his back in a car accident. He started with a prescription for Oxycontin and later turned to snorting heroin.
At 36, he has a criminal record that includes felony drug possession.
“When I’ve come out of prison in the past, within a month I would find myself using,’’ he said. “And other times I would be using within a week.”
But this last time was different. During his third week at the ACI, he said, the prison doctor started him on a daily regimen of Suboxone, a medication that blunts opioid cravings. He stayed on Suboxone until he was released from prison. And when he got out, he went straight into an addiction treatment program.
“Some people actually come in the day they’re released just to say hi and to see where we are because we’re on the same campus,’’ said Laura Levine, director of a new addiction treatment center at Eleanor Slater Hospital run by CODAC, where Casey got help. The center is in the same complex as the ACI.
Since it opened in October, Levine said, 33 patients have enrolled, including 14 former inmates.
“We hook them up with doctors. Some of them need disability,’’ she said. “We have helped many of them get insurance. And we provide mental health services. Some of them need their psych meds.”
Casey was released from the ACI nine weeks ago on a weekend. The office at Eleanor Slater was closed, so the staff arranged an appointment for him at another CODAC office.
“That helped a lot,’’ he said, “because there was no downtime for me to think…should I go get high or should I do this?’’
And the Suboxone, he said, has helped him stay off opioids.
“I felt like I had zero cravings on Suboxone, so it’s been really good.”
He also visits the Slater Center for weekly therapy appointments. “I’ve seen a lot of really good people pass away; a lot of really good people in jail, a lot of good people dead from this,’’ Casey said. “It’s definitely time to take the next step in my life and put it all behind me.
And for the first time, Casey said, he feels like he has what he needs to take that next step.
