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Salt Lake County’s Addiction Treatment Approach Is Good Policy
This article, in a slightly edited form, first appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune on April 26, 2026.
Salt Lake County’s new five-year, $29.7 million investment in addiction treatment and re-entry support is more than smart policy. It reflects what actually works to reduce overdose deaths.
As the Salt Lake Tribune reported, the plan will expand medication-assisted treatment in the county jail from 100 to 500 people and provide “warm handoffs” to housing, transportation and ongoing care when people are released. That matters. The weeks after leaving jail are among the most dangerous times for overdose.
The county’s own data are striking: people who receive medication-assisted treatment while incarcerated have an 18% recidivism rate, compared with roughly 70% for the general jail population. That is what happens when treatment is continuous and release is treated as a transition to care, not abandonment.
For too long, the nation has relied on enforcement and supply reduction while neglecting the conditions that make people vulnerable in the first place: unstable housing, untreated trauma, lack of opportunity and fragmented care. Prescribing has fallen dramatically over the last decade, yet overdose deaths continued to rise. That should have told us something.
Addiction is not just about substances. It is also about environment, support and whether someone leaving custody has any realistic path to stability.
Salt Lake County deserves credit for investing opioid settlement dollars in a model grounded in treatment, housing support and dignity. Utah should build on it by expanding access to all forms of medication treatment, strengthening re-entry services and creating more low-barrier community programs statewide.
Structural solutions save lives. Slogans do not.
Hello, you are right on track with your “pain” management approach. I have witnessed and assisted those dealing with the issues of pain control. I have taken friends to meetings –they won’t let me in — taken them to get methadone shots, counseled them etc. and so on. However, the handling with all the restrictions causes me a lot of problems. I need to explain. In the early 1970’s I was put into a high pressure sales job selling computers! I developed neuropathy in my back. It was tough so I went to a doctor for help with the pain. He gave me Percaden (I can’t even spell it), it was oxycontin and aspirin. They gave it out like candy! No restrictions. No one told me it was addictive! I joined the YMCA started swimming 3 times a week. Pain went away! I left the addictive pain medicine on the shelf! I never got anything but pain relief. No addiction — nothing. In 2023 I had major intestine surgery. I was in the hospital for months and was given oxycontin. I got 10mg every 8 hours so I could eat, sleep and live without pain. When I was finally discharged I got hospital script for the same. I asked my pharmacy manager who would fill it. No one would. I just did without and live with my trigeminal nerve face pain which is very severe. I have been to every pain doctor within my reach without any relief. I recently got a script for a different opioid with a receptor blocker. Within 3 hours I was heading to the ER! It has taken me a full month to get that out of my system! I never had any problems of addition with any drug given to me, never had any side effects. So study me to help the others who suffer and give me some relief. I believe their issue is largely mental. I will beat my pain issue unless the doctors kill me first! There’s only one of me to suffer, all the rest should be getting the help as you have set forth.