Friday, September 03, 2004

SAMHSA and ASAM Join Forces to Provide Support to Physicians Treating Opiate Addiction with Buprenorphine
SAMHSA press release - "The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) today announced a cooperative agreement with the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), a specialty organization of addiction medicine physicians, to develop a mentoring program for internists, family medicine specialists, primary care physicians, pain specialists, psychiatrists and other non-addiction medicine physicians who are treating patients addicted to prescription narcotic pain medications or heroin with buprenorphine medications. Using a three-year SAMHSA grant of $499,681 annually, ASAM will create a physician clinical support system that will provide a national network of 50 trained physician mentors with expertise in treating addiction to opioids (narcotic pain medications and heroin) with buprenorphine. The mentors will represent the medical specialty training societies permitted by law to provide required training to physicians on use of buprenorphine."