The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) has lost all credibility.

Let’s just look at this from a practical application point of view. A physician; any physician has a private practice. Large or small doesn’t matter. If he’s at all successful, he has a staff proportionate to the amount of business he has. Now add 100 new opioid addicted patients. He is purported to suddenly be able to not only service his existing patients, but to also track the continuing care of 100 opioid addicted patients on a powerful medication called Buprenorphine. This medication merely arrests their addiction temporarily until the other aspects of the continuing care can take hold, i.e. therapy, outpatient services, the experience of the recovering community, drug testing, etc.

Now a message from the front lines. A reality check if you will. No continuing care happens. The addicted patient is given a prescription and told to come back in 30 days for another prescription. Maybe a 5 minute talk at best. It is not Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT). It is Medication AS Treatment.

Dr. Stuart Gitlow is the current President of The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). He has requested permission from the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to increase the number of patients now from 100 to 250 and then 500 opioid addicted patients next year. With a caseload of this size, there is no option except Medication AS treatment. Dr. Gitlow is also the Medical Director of Orexo, the makers of Zubsolv, a Buprenorphine and Naloxone medication. There is no way that Dr. Gitolow can explain away his inherent conflict of interest. This is the definition of conflict of interest.

This effort is a blatant disregard of every doctor’s oath to “first do no harm” as it completely disregards the addicted patient. Just line them up and medicate them. Drug company wins, patient/addict loses. This is kicking the “addiction can” down the road on a monumental scale. It lacks conscience, it lacks integrity, and it lacks the support of anyone with any dignified, effective approach to treating addiction.

Love, E