Senate Minority Assistant Whip Jen Plumb, D-Salt Lake City, is pictured on the first day of the legislative session at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Despite several county jails expanding medical assisted treatment programs in recent years for people struggling with opioid addiction, if someone is transferred to one of Utah’s two state prisons, that treatment stops.
What follows are dangerous withdrawal symptoms that can take a severe physical and mental toll.
“When it’s working for someone, we should not take them off of it. That sudden discontinuation is dangerous,” said Sen. Jen Plumb, D-Salt Lake City, during a Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Tuesday.
Plumb is sponsoring SB212 , which would allow anyone receiving medical assisted treatment, whether in their community or in jail, to have access to a program if they’re sent to prison. The bill passed out of the committee with unanimous support, and is headed to the Senate floor for consideration.