A recent decision to let people continue treatment for drug addiction while in the Sedgwick County Jail in Wichita reflects a significant shift in thinking at Kansas sheriffs’ offices that is gaining momentum. Sedgwick officials no longer take people off of their prescriptions for medications such as buprenorphine when booked into jail. No one keeps a tally of how many Kansas jails allow incarcerated people with opioid or alcohol addictions to receive the combination of medication and counseling that can help them. But nationally, only a fraction of jails do so, researchers say. Sedgwick’s joins at least a few other Kansas jails that do so, including Crawford County’s in southeast Kansas.
Source: KCUR News
