Most addiction-treatment prescribers now need one DEA attestation

Patients trying to start medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder usually meet the system through a prescriber who is already registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration. Under a final federal rule published June 9, 2026, the old DATA waiver, short for the Drug Addiction Treatment Act waiver, is gone. For most practitioners who register or renew to dispense schedule II, III, IV or V controlled substances, the remaining step is a one-time addiction-training attestation. That requirement applies to applications submitted on or after June 27, 2023.

The change tracks the SUPPORT Act, which narrowed 21 U.S.C. 823(h) to narcotic drugs in schedule II and erased the separate waiver Congress once used for schedules III, IV and V in maintenance or detoxification treatment. The older system also carried extra conditions, including notice to the Department of Health and Human Services, an applicable number and qualifying-practitioner status. DEA is now codifying that those requirements no longer exist as a separate gate.

A one-time check, not a standing waiver

The training obligation is broad, but it is not endless. Most practitioners must satisfy it only once, and the rule excludes people practicing solely as veterinarians. DEA is not creating a new power to prescribe; it is updating the registration and renewal process so it matches the law Congress already changed.

That matters because the paperwork itself is part of access. The agency is turning the old special-waiver path into a standard registration requirement, so a prescriber can move ahead once the training attestation is on file rather than navigating a separate opioid-treatment exception.

What disappears for prescribers and patients

For clinicians, the practical change is the removal of a separate DATA-waiver application. For patients, that means the federal gate attached to medication-assisted treatment is simpler, with one training attestation now standing in for the old waiver paperwork for most controlled-substance prescribers.