The National Judicial College

Hon. Shaun R. Floerke and Ellen Edens, M.D. Judge Floerke is the President and CEO of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation in Minnesota. He retired after 16 years as a District Court Judge in Duluth where he founded and presided over the South St. Louis Country DWI Court, one of four National Center for DWI Courts Academy Courts in the nation and for which he and his team won the National Association of Drug Court Professionals DWI Court Leadership Award in 2018. Dr. Edens is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Lead for the VA National Telemental Health Center, Associate Director of Yale’s Addiction Psychiatry fellowship, Co-director of the Connecticut VA’s Interprofessional Advanced Fellowship in Addiction Treatment, and Co-Director of the Opioid Reassessment Clinic, a primary care-based clinic designed to assess and treatment patients with issues around opioid safety, efficacy and misuse.

This webcast was developed for judges—whether presiding over state, municipal, general jurisdiction, treatment/specialty courts and/or whether they are law trained or not.

Substance and Opioid use disorders (OUDs) are associated with criminal behavior, arrest, and incarceration. Effective treatments are needed to reduce the burden of OUDs on public safety and on the public health. Fortunately, there are three medications that are approved for the treatment of opioid dependence. This is the first webinar in a two-part series.

At the conclusion of this activity, learners should be able to:

• Differentiate between physiologic dependence and a substance use disorder;
• Compare & contrast 3 medications for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD); and
• Identify the effectiveness of Medications for OUD in OUD treatment.

Funding for this initiative was made possible (in part) by grant no. 1H79TI081968 from SAMHSA. The views expressed in written conference materials or publications and by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services; nor does mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.