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SHERIDAN, Ill. (AP) -- U.S. prisons are experimenting with a high-priced monthly injection that could help addicted inmates stay off opioids after they are released, but skeptics question its effectiveness and say the manufacturer has aggressively marketed an unproven drug to corrections officials.
A single shot of Vivitrol, given in the buttocks, lasts for four weeks and eliminates the need for the daily doses common with alternatives such as methadone. But each shot costs as much as $1,000, and because the drug has a limited track record, experts do not agree on how well it works.
Proponents say Vivitrol could save money compared with the cost of locking up a drug offender -- about $25,000 a year for each inmate at the Sheridan Correctional Center, 70 miles southwest of Chicago.
Dr. Joshua Lee, of New York University's medical school, said more evidence is needed to determine whether the medication can help substantial numbers of people and whether it's worth paying for, but the early results are encouraging.
"It sounds good, and for some of us, it feels like the right thing to do," said Lee, a leading researcher on the treatment.
Vivitrol is emerging as the nation searches for ways to ease an opioid epidemic that affects more than 2 million Americans and an estimated 15 percent of the U.S. prison population. Many experts view prisons -- where addiction's human toll can be seen most clearly -- as a natural place to discover what works.
Christopher Wolf had already served prison time for nonviolent crimes when he was ordered into treatment for a heroin addiction by a judge who suggested Vivitrol. Three months later, the 36-year-old from Centerville, Ohio, is clean and working full time as a cook.
He now suggests the medication to other addicts.
"I don't have cravings," Wolf said. "I see how much better life is. It gets better really fast."
Vivitrol targets receptors in the brain's reward system, blocking the high and extinguishing urges. In some programs, prisoners get an injection before release, then follow-up shots from any clinic.
For decades, researchers have recognized addiction as a relapsing brain disease with medication an important part of therapy. But most jails and prisons reject methadone and buprenorphine, the other government-approved medications for opioid addiction, because they are habit-forming and can be abused.
Just ask Joshua Meador, 28, an inmate at Sheridan who hopes to get into the Vivitrol program before his release in January.
Before incarceration, he abused both older treatment drugs. When given take-home doses of methadone for the weekend, he would sell them for heroin.
"When I'm on Vivitrol, I can't get high," he said. The drug has no street value or abuse potential.
"You couldn't design something better for the criminal justice system," said David Farabee of the University of California at Los Angeles, who leads a Vivitrol study in a New Mexico jail. "There's been pushback with other medications, people saying, 'We're just changing one drug for another.' That argument goes out the window when you're talking about a blocker" like Vivitrol.
Prison systems in Illinois, Vermont, Wyoming and Wisconsin are trying the drug on a small scale. Michigan is offering Vivitrol to parolees who commit small crimes, if addiction is the reason for their new offense. The federal Bureau of Prisons ran a field trial in Texas and plans to expand the program to the Northeast next year.
The drug's manufacturer hopes prisons will be the gateway to a larger market.