In 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement urging doctors to offer medications for opioid use disorder to adolescent and young adult patients who needed them.
New national data show that more young people with an opioid use disorder diagnosis did start receiving addiction medications like buprenorphine and methadone, but the increase was small. And the number of young people who stayed on medication for six months — already quite low — may have actually decreased.
