Lawsuit would compel Washington jail to provide opiate-addiction treatment
SEATTLE — In a novel case that could have implications across the U.S., the Washington state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sued a county sheriff’s office to force it to provide opiate-withdrawal medication to prisoners, rather than requiring them to go cold turkey.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, says the Whatcom County Jail’s refusal to provide the medicine violates the Americans with Disability Act, because opioid addiction qualifies as a disability under the law. Prisoners suffering from opioid addiction are as entitled to medication as those with any other condition requiring medical treatment, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit also says the jail’s policy is counterproductive because inmates who go cold turkey risk severe relapse upon release — increasing the likelihood they’ll commit new crimes to satisfy their cravings and that they’ll overdose.
The Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail in Bellingham and was named in the lawsuit, said it did not have any immediate response.
“If a person in the jail suffered from a heart condition and needed medication the jail would provide it, but it denies access to Medication-Assisted Treatment, which reduces the risk of overdose and death,” ACLU attorney Jessica Wolfe said in a written statement. “This is unsafe and discriminatory.”
The medicines at issue include methadone and buprenorphine, which is also sold under the brand names Suboxone and Subutex. They work by inhibiting opioid receptors in the brain, counteracting the euphoric effects and physiological cravings.
While the Whatcom County Jail does provide the medicine to pregnant women suffering from opioid withdrawal, it does not provide them otherwise, the lawsuit says.
Meanwhile, the county — like places across the U.S. — has seen more and more opioid overdoses over the past 15 years. According to the lawsuit, at least 18 people died of overdoses in Whatcom County in 2016, a year the jail saw at least 253 prisoners self-report as abusers of heroin and other opiates.