By Adi Goldiner.
As the opioid epidemic continued to devastate lives, families, and communities, legal scholars and practitioners have joined medical experts in seeking ways to improve the social response to this unprecedented crisis. There is a growing group of scholars advocating for decriminalization of drug use and an end to the “war on drugs,” highlighting the adverse consequences such policies have on stigma and consequently recovery and social reintegration. From a different angle, other scholars seek to utilize disability antidiscrimination law, particularly the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), to assist people with addiction by improving the availability and equity of healthcare services, protecting recovering addicts who use prescribed medications in their treatment, strengthening confidentiality of healthcare records in treating addictions, and increasing access to harm-reduction services. Full Article.