ALBUQUERQUE, NM (AP) – The Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque has launched a program to give buprenorphine to people in prison who are already using it to treat their opioid addictions.
The reports that the buprenorphine maintenance program can provide the drug to an average of 22 inmates per day.
Recovery Services of New Mexico – a treatment organization operated by BayMark Health Services – won a contract to deliver the drugs to the prison late last year. The county signed a two-year contract in which it pledged to pay the organization nearly $ 250,000 for services and $ 312,400 for the drugs themselves.
Recovery Services has offered another drug treatment – methadone – in prison for years.
For now, Recovery Services is only making buprenorphine available to those who were already on the drug prior to incarceration. However, Evan Gonzales, a spokesman for the Bernalillo District Department of Behavioral Health Services, said the district will consider expanding the program to include people starting treatment.
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