Opioid misuse and addiction are associated with multiple severe health and social harms, including fatal overdose, HIV and hepatitis C infection, and criminal justice involvement (Degenhardt et al., 2017; Rudd, Seth, David, & Scholl, 2016). Opioid agonist treatment, specifically methadone maintenance therapy (MMT), is a cornerstone of treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) (Stein et al., 2012; World Health Organization, 2015). MMT has been shown to reduce injection drug use, all-cause and overdose mortality, and improve social functioning and quality of life (Salsitz & Wiegand, 2015; Simoens, 2005). Furthermore, MMT supports antiretroviral therapy adherence among HIV-infected individuals (Bach et al., 2015) and has consistently been shown to lower the risk of blood-borne pathogen transmission (Vlahov, Robertson, & Strathdee, 2010). This large body of evidence for MMT has led to its inclusion on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines since 2005 (WHO Model List of Essential Medicines, 2017).
