Many California teens who deal with addiction don’t have access to evidence-based treatment. Health providers and advocates provided testimony to lawmakers this week on specific weak points in the system.
Jayme Congdon, a pediatrician and professor at UC San Francisco, said that there’s almost no overlap between pediatric providers and providers trained to treat opioid addiction.
A 2024 study conducted by a number of researchers from both Yale and Oregon Health & Science University found that there’s also a shortage nationwide of treatment for young people.
“It really whittles down to almost no availability of residential treatment for minors who need that inpatient at least to start their treatment,” Cogdon said.
When the study was conducted, there were no open beds in California facilities that both took Medicaid and offered buprenorphine, which the American Academy of Pediatrics supports as a treatment for opioid addiction. And a recent Yale University study found that non-medication based treatments could be worse than no treatment at all.
There are limited bills still in play in the California Legislature aimed at expanding treatment. One bill would allow minors 16 and older to receive medical treatment for opioid addiction without a parent’s consent.
The National Institutes of Health say that teen overdose deaths are on the rise, even though teen drug use is declining.
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