42 U.S.C. § 300y–11 — Interim maintenance treatment

(a) Requirement regarding Secretary — To help reduce the spread of HIV disease through the intravenous use of heroin or other morphine-like drugs, the Secretary, in setting conditions for using methadone in public or nonprofit private treatment programs, must authorize those programs to: (1) dispense methadone to people who meet the conditions for admission and are seeking admission, but who will not actually gain admission until 14 or more days after seeking it, because the program has limited capacity; and (2) while those people wait, provide them only minimum ancillary services, not full treatment. (b) Inapplicability of requirement in certain circumstances (1) In general — The requirement in subsection (a) does not apply to the Secretary if any or all of these conditions are met: (A) the preponderance of scientific research shows the risk of HIV transmission from intravenous drug use is minimal; (B) the preponderance of scientific research shows medically supervised methadone dispensing is not an effective way to reduce dependence on heroin and similar drugs; or (C) the preponderance of available data shows that most methadone treatment programs already admit everyone seeking services within 14 days. (2) Evaluation by Secretary — To decide whether any of these conditions are met, the Secretary must consult with the National Commission on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. (c) Conditions for obtaining authorization from Secretary (1) In general — To carry out subsection (a), the Secretary, after consulting that Commission, must issue by regulation the conditions treatment programs need to meet to get authorized to provide interim maintenance treatment. Those conditions must include ways to prevent unauthorized use of methadone. (2) Counseling on HIV disease — Those regulations must say a program cannot get this authorization unless it also gives recipients counseling on preventing exposure to and the spread of HIV disease. (3) Permission of relevant State as condition of authorization — Those regulations must also say the Secretary cannot give this authorization to a program in a State unless that State's chief public health officer certifies that: (A) the officer does not object to giving these authorizations in the State; and (B) offering interim maintenance services will not reduce the State's comprehensive treatment programs' capacity to admit people, compared to the date of the certification. (4) Date certain for issuance of regulations; failure of Secretary — The Secretary had to issue a final rule for these regulations, effective no later than 180 days after July 10, 1992. If the Secretary missed that deadline, a specific proposed rule from March 2, 1989 (part 291 of title 21, Code of Federal Regulations, docket 88N–0444) would automatically take effect as the final rule once the 180 days ended, and the State-certification requirement from paragraph (3) would automatically become part of that rule. (d) Definitions (1) "Interim maintenance services" means providing methadone in a treatment program under the circumstances described in subsection (a)(1) and (a)(2). (2) "HIV disease" means infection with the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome. (3) "Treatment program" means a public or nonprofit private program that treats dependence on heroin or other morphine-like drugs.