MAT stands for Medication Assisted Treatment. This program is extremely controversial, and it’s difficult to know where to start. To be in this program, the inmate should have had a previous opioid addiction.
There is reportedly a questionnaire that asks the inmate this question, but the ones we interviewed said they didn’t take it. The drug they take is called SUBOXONE and it’s supposed to stop opioid craving.
At pill call, allegedly, the nurse is supposed to crush the pill, so the inmate doesn’t “cheek” it and sell it later. This crushing is hit-and-miss depending on how busy the nurse is.
There is supposed to be counseling with MAT but we couldn’t find anyone that had any. On the official handout about this program, under Suboxone, it says…”Can be misused by people who do not have opioid dependency. “!
The inmates I interviewed who were on the program were mixed. There were those who swore it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. But there were more who admitted they used it to get high…these inmates spoke off the record.
It was explained to me this way: If the nurse doesn’t grind the drug into powder, then they can’t regulate how much they consume. If it’s left in a pill form, they have more control over the ” high” they get from it. There have been many reports, mostly from officers, that many get sick from it and throw up.
Speaking of officers, they are almost 100% against the program. They say it just gets inmates that had been clean and sober for years, to backslide and become addicted again, complements of the State.
Is this a new way for the DOC to keep inmates coming back to prison so that they get more money in their coffers?