Biotechnological innovations, such as long acting opioid drugs implants and injections, are increasingly marketed – but what are the ethical considerations? We explored this issue in the new episode of Drugreporter Café.
Long-acting opioid drugs, administered by injections or implants, are marketed as solutions to opioid overdose crisis. Criminal justice systems mandate medicine to lock up brain receptors much as they might lock up people themselves. Are these innovations the future of addiction treatment? What bio-ethical questions do they raise about informed consent?
We discussed these questions with Roxane Saucier and Daniel Wolfe from the Open Society Foundations, who published a paper recently on “Biotechnologies and the future of opioid addiction treatments” in the International Journal of Drug Policy.
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