Former SAMHSA official on need for mobile methadone

Bob Lubran was at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) when the methadone mobile units were seen as vital — long before the current opioid crisis. The former head of SAMHSA's Division of Pharmacologic Therapies (DPT), Lubran told ADAW last week that the mobile units were being approved up until the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) stopped them in 2007 due to a legal issue. We were curious about what went on behind the scenes at SAMHSA after the approvals were shut down, during the same years when the opioid crisis was growing.