Philly’s first mobile methadone van is on track with $1.2 million spending plan, city says

Philadelphia health officials say they are on track to spend $1.2 million in opioid lawsuit settlement cash on a specialized van equipped to dispense the addiction treatment methadone, part of an effort to expand access to the heavily regulated drug.

The mobile methadone program is part of a city spending plan for the first influx of funds from lawsuits against the pharmaceutical companies that fueled the current overdose crisis when they manufactured, distributed, and marketed prescription opioid painkillers.

Last month, a city controller report warned that Philadelphia had not yet spent the money allotted for the program. This put the funding at risk, because the state trust that oversees the use of settlement funds could withhold future funding from the city if it was not spent by the end of the year, the controller’s office said in a statement.

That report was based on spending reports from March, and the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility has subsequently spent more than $720,000 on the mobile methadone program, according to Sharon Gallagher, a spokesperson for the managing director’s office.

The city has also since spent another set of funds that the controller’s report said had gone unused — $373,725 on a canvassing program to prevent overdose deaths.

“We are on track to complete the spend before the end of the year,” Gallagher said. “There are no immediate plans to request an extension, nor is there a concern about any withholding of monies in the future.”

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Methadone is an opioid itself, and a popular treatment for people with addiction because it staves off cravings and withdrawal over a longer period of time than illicit opioids like heroin or fentanyl.

Methadone is heavily regulated by the federal government. It can be dispensed only from specially licensed clinics. This makes it different from the less-potent buprenorphine, another opioid addiction medication that any doctor authorized to prescribe drugs can offer.

And many people who take methadone must visit their clinic each day for a single dose, forcing patients to constantly plan around this daily commitment.

In general, mobile medical clinics aim to reach patients who would have difficulty driving or taking public transportation to a brick-and-mortar site. They can also visit communities that lack permanent medical clinics.

In Philadelphia, mobile medical programs have provided other types of care for people with addiction, including wound-care vans to treat lesions caused by the animal tranquilizer xylazine, which has contaminated most of the illicit opioids sold in the city.

Making methadone available by mobile vans is more complicated and controversial. Between 2007 and 2021, the federal government banned the approval of any new mobile methadone clinics, leaving just a handful operating around the country.

Since that ban lifted, cities in Rhode Island and New Jersey have launched mobile methadone clinics, sometimes drawing opposition from the communities where they park. (In some parts of the world, by contrast, these clinics are widely deployed to treat addiction, like the system in Lisbon, Portugal, that serves hundreds of people daily.)

The federal regulations around methadone can make it difficult to open new clinics, let alone a mobile one. In Rhode Island, a group hoping to launch a mobile methadone program waited six months for a specially made safe in which to store the drug, as required by federal regulations. The safe had to be heavy enough to deter break-ins, but lightweight enough to be transported inside a van.

In Philadelphia, city officials said that they’ve retrofitted a van to meet federal regulations and applied for licensing and insurance on the van. They’ve also purchased materials and medications for the van and hired staff.

The $480,000 in settlement funds that must be spent by the end of the year will cover operating costs for the van, Gallagher said.

She did not say when Philadelphia’s program would be launched.