People in New Mexico state prisons are unable to access medication for addiction treatment unless they’re pregnant— even if they had been on medication before being incarcerated or were transferred from a handful of county jails that provide it. A new state law is going to change that.
By December, the Human Services Department must consult with corrections administrators and addiction treatment providers to create rules for the program. By the end of 2025, the Corrections Department must have the program up and running, at least for those who come in with a prescription. And, a year after that, state prisons need to be able to start someone on medication.
Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the UNM Health Sciences Center Dr. Nathan Birnbaum was a medical advocate for the new law. He encourages New Mexicans to ask themselves who they want returning to our communities upon release from prison.
“Are these individuals who we want to be still craving substances and greatly at risk for overdose and death?” he asked. “Or, do we want people to be on the medications that help stabilize them so that they can do the things that are necessary to regain their footing in the community?”
People recently released from lockups made up nearly 13% of New Mexico’s drug overdose deaths in 2020, according to the CDC. And access to medication-assisted treatment, or MAT, behind bars has also been shown to reduce the likelihood of committing crimes or getting incarcerated again.
While “medication-assisted treatment” is for opioid use disorder specifically, Birnbaum points out New Mexico’s law actually defines it more broadly — as the use of Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs for substance use disorders.
“So that certainly could mean alcohol use disorder,” he said. That means as much as one third of New Mexico’s prison population could be eligible for treatment, according to Birnbaum.
While the bill originally expanded the treatment programs to all county jails as well, the Legislature limited its scope to only state facilities during the recent session. More than $2 million is set aside in the budget for the effort.
Counties will, however, be at the rulemaking table this year, since some — including the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center — already have MAT programs and at times transfer people into state custody.