Amplifying Addiction Medicine’s Voice in the House of Medicine

Sophia Peng, MD

From June 5–10, several ASAM members were in Chicago for the American Medical Association’s (AMA) House of Delegates Annual Meeting. Through a democratic process, the House of Delegates sets AMA’s national advocacy agenda. ASAM’s delegation focuses on elevating addiction medicine-related issues to the AMA’s list of advocacy priorities.

ASAM member and addiction medicine physician Sophia Peng, MD, has been an Alternate Delegate since 2022.

“I really appreciate the support of ASAM leadership and its members to attend the AMA House of Delegates meetings, where we can use the House of Medicine’s collective voice to advocate for our patients,” said Dr. Peng, who is board certified in Addiction Medicine and Internal Medicine. “There have been numerous addiction-related resolutions discussed at each meeting, and though ASAM’s delegation is small, we are respected by House of Delegate members as experts in the field. We’ve done well to advance resolutions consistent with ASAM policy priorities.”

ASAM was officially accepted into the AMA’s advocacy and policy body in 1988. Twice a year, the AMA’s House of Delegates convenes physicians from different multidisciplinary fields to discuss national health policy.

How ASAM Advocated in 2026

At June’s meeting, ASAM’s delegation advocated for several resolutions to improve public health measures around addiction prevention and treatment.

For example, this year’s meeting took place amid growing conversations on emerging substances like kratom and 7-OH, which the broader medical community was eager to address.

“We advocated to support a ban on commercial sales of kratom and 7-OH, but we also made sure that the language in the resolution could not be misconstrued to put people who are using or possessing these substances at risk of legal consequences,” said Dr. Peng.

Other ASAM-supported policies included:

• Advocating for the removal of barriers to the implementation of pregnancy-specific treatment pathways for patients with opioid use disorder (OUD), including advocating for medication take home flexibilities and linkage to prenatal care and addiction treatment prior to discharge;
• Supporting physicians prescribing controlled substances for legitimate medical purposes;
• Promoting greater awareness of and advocating for expanded coverage of low-dose CT scans for patients at high risk of lung cancer, such as chronic smokers; and
• Improving pharmacy and physician communication and working with pharmacies subject to the national opioid litigation settlements to provide data on refusals to fill and dispense medications.

Strengthening Connections Across Specialties

Due to the prevalence of substance use disorders (SUDs), clinicians across a range of specialties may encounter patients with addiction. It’s why relationship building across specialties within the AMA has been an important part of advancing ASAM-supported policies, said Dr. Peng.

Throughout the meeting, ASAM’s delegates fan out to meet with physicians across different caucuses to advocate for addiction medicine policies and collaborate on policy solutions.

“On a typical day, I would rush between the Young Physicians’ Section, the Internal Medicine Caucus, Preventative Medicine Section, and the Illinois state meetings to discuss addiction-related resolutions,” explained Dr. Peng.

Each policy first starts as a resolution. As those resolutions advance through the House, ASAM’s delegates will often offer expert testimony, lending their expertise as addiction specialist physicians to inform colleagues about best practices. This year’s topics ranged from the regulation of flavored e-cigarettes to promoting evidence-based care for pregnant patients with SUD.

Addiction-related issues are gaining traction in the House of Medicine. According to Dr. Peng, the younger generation of physicians is helping to lead this charge.

“Many physicians are recognizing addiction as an important issue that needs more education and advocacy to remove barriers to treatment access,” she said. “Younger members, including medical students, residents, and fellows, have proffered many resolutions related to addiction.”

Passing resolutions is the ultimate goal. But for Dr. Peng, the meeting also sparks important conversations between physicians about patient care and healthcare advocacy.

“It’s important that ASAM is present to explain why Addiction Medicine is a critical field and to educate people in other specialties on the different challenges facing people with addiction,” said Dr. Peng. “Other than passing resolutions, that’s the best part. We get to talk to healthcare leaders one-on-one and explain the evidence basis of addiction and the challenges that we clinicians and patients face. There is a lot of stigma still surrounding addiction, and we can dispel a lot of misinformation by having these conversations.”

Those conversations trickle down to the institutions, state agencies, and medical centers attendees are involved with, Dr. Peng said, which can continue changing the culture of medicine.

Dr. Peng’s Journey to Advocacy

Dr. Peng has been part of ASAM’s delegation since 2022, but her interest in addiction medicine and health policy started several years prior.

“Addiction medicine is the most regulated field of medicine. It takes an act of Congress to allow us to use opioid-related medications to treat OUD,” she said, referring to the Controlled Substances Act.

Dr. Peng spent much of her time working in inpatient addiction consult service teams, which have more flexibility providing methadone for the treatment of OUD compared to outpatient settings. Witnessing these barriers to outpatient care inspired her to pursue a health policy fellowship project centered on identifying ways to improve patient access to methadone treatment. It ultimately led her to ASAM, which continues to push for federal legislative changes to allow qualified practitioners to prescribe methadone that can be dispensed at community pharmacies.

“I was really pleased to see ASAM leading the charge around this,” she said.

During this time, Congress also passed several bills focused on expanding patient access to addiction care, including the Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment (MAT) Act, which removed the X-waiver requirement for prescribing of buprenorphine for OUD.

“In 2022, there was a lot of rich legislation around addiction because of the twin pandemics of overdoses and COVID-19,” added Dr. Peng. “That led to a lot of important changes in health policy.”

Dr. Peng developed a passion for Addiction Medicine in response to the need she saw in clinical practice after completing medical training. She says that during medical school and residency, education around SUD treatment was limited.

“We saw people who had medical problems related to their addiction, but I don’t think we really addressed the root cause of the issue,” said Dr. Peng. “For example, we treated alcohol withdrawal with withdrawal management but never started patients on naltrexone to help with their underlying addiction.”

After finishing her Internal Medicine residency in 2015, she began practicing medicine in central Ohio, where she saw an influx of patients with OUD and chronic pain. That experience inspired her to receive specialized addiction medicine training as part of an addiction consult services program in Colorado and Chicago, and obtained board certification in addiction medicine through the clinical practice pathway.

Today, she continues to specialize in hospital-based substance use disorder care and works as an assistant professor of internal medicine and psychiatry and community behavior sciences at Rush University.

For Dr. Peng, those experiences taught her not just how to provide specialized addiction care but also strengthened her ability to communicate with patients and with multidisciplinary care teams.

She credits those skills with helping to identify both addiction and non-addiction related medical issues with patients, simply because she was willing to sit down and have challenging conversations.

“I can’t tell you the number of times I found a medical issue not related to addiction, just because I simply sat and listened and had a different approach to the patient,” said Dr. Peng.

Dr. Peng continues to use those skills both in the clinic and in her advocacy endeavors. For her and the rest of ASAM’s delegation, the advocacy work will continue at the Interim House of Delegates Meeting, happening November 6–10.