Jul 26, 2022 2 min read

Pennsylvania’s constitution gives the state Supreme Court vast power over every aspect of the state’s courts, endowing it with “general supervisory and administrative authority over all the courts and justices of the peace.”

Usually, it zealously guards that power and the judicial branch’s independence. It has decreed that it, rather than the legislative or executive branches, has jurisdiction over lobbyists who also are lawyers, for example. And it regularly issues an array of rules covering judicial administration and policy from the district magisterial courts through the appellate level.

Yet when the U.S. Department of Justice sued the court system because some common pleas courts had issued bans on drug defendants using anti-addiction medications, the Supreme Court claimed it has no responsibility.

It has asked a federal judge to remove it from a lawsuit that the DOJ filed to lift the court bans on medication for people with opioid use disorder. Methadone and buprenorphine reduce opioid withdrawal symptoms and enable patients to “function normally, attend school or work, and participate in other forms of treatment,” according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Extended-release naltrexone blocks the euphoric effects of opioid drugs.

Courts in Northumberland and Jefferson counties have required defendants to be drug-free within 30 days of their court appearances, which means they cannot have the anti-addiction drugs in their systems. The DOJ has cited those counties, six others with partial bans, and the Supreme Court, contending that the politics violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, a civil rights law that covers opioid use disorder.

Denying opioid-addicted defendants access to the prescribed, standard drugs that they need to fight the addiction might violate the ADA, but it undoubtedly violates common sense and sound public health practice.

Rather than fighting to get out of the lawsuit, the Supreme Court should use its broad powers over the court system to fight opioid addiction. It should instruct all state courts to allow addicted defendants access to the appropriate, medically prescribed treatment.