Posted on 07/30/2011 6:45:21 AM PDT by DBCJR
Methadone has a poor record of getting people off of narcotics. Trading one drug for another isn’t a recipe for success. Total detox then a change of environment/friends when the narcotic addict is clean is a much more sucessful option.
Seems to me that its more of a recipe for funneling tax dollars to methadone producers.
Your observation runs counter to SAMHSA CSAT empirical data. Traditional treatment for opioid addicts, non-medication assisted, has success rates ranging 6-8%. Medication assisted treatment has rates over 70%.
“Seems to me that its more of a recipe for funneling tax dollars to methadone producers.”
That is a very jaded perspective. That is like saying that announcing a study that drinking water is healthy is channeling sales of bottled water. Or that calling for more drilling is channeling more profits for Exxon Mobil.
Of course, methadone producers will be rewarded - for producing a product that works. That is the American way, isn’t it?
Perhaps you should take a look at long-term efficacy of medication-assisted treatment. While methadone will stop withdrawal symptoms, it is way too offten used as a long-term substitute for the drugs. It's like taking a wino and weaning him off with beer and then continuing the beer "therapy". As a recovered alky (23 years) I have frequent contact with folks in other addictions and have seen far too many die from methadone overdose after the treatment being lauded as what saved the person from the addiction. The hard reality is that 8-15% is about the norm for long-term freedom from dependancy, no matter what the treatment. All methadone does is increase the short-term efficacy, then it becomes a similar anchor around the person's neck.
Methadone is paid for by tax dollars - state and fed. I don’t understand why taxpayers have to pay for what amounts to a substitute drug for addicts. This is the part of the ‘legalize drugs’ argument I despise. If someone wants to be addicted to drugs - ok, I guess. But why do taxpayers have to pay for the damage they do to their own lives?
Go up on Netflix and rent a copy of the HBO Documentary from several years ago entitled “Methadonia”. It documents how people addicted to heroin become legally addicted to methadone; along with innumerable other problems....
This article is ridiculous.
Having taxpayers pay for a methadone addiction is oh so much cheaper. LOL
I don't see the incentive for the clinic to "cure" the patient from the addition. The person I know, doesn't know anyone who has permanently broken their addition to drugs.
It is going to be bad when these folks can't get methadone or a substitute.
Lots of people make huge amounts of money off methadone. Though you wouldn’t think it to look at the squalor of an inner city methadone clinic, the money is all behind the scenes and at a much higher level.
And those who make the money lobby hard to keep it that way.
A system that was tried in Europe showed great promise, but was effectively killed. It was a combination of three drugs. The first would put a junkie into a coma for four days. The second would remove the heroin from their system. And the third would block the effect of heroin in their body, so they would get nothing from injecting it.
The end result was that the junkie would go through withdrawl while unconscious, wake up clean, and have enough of the blocking agent in their blood to last them for a month. Then, with counseling, and once a month getting a shot of blocking agent for five more months, the chance of them going back to heroin was significantly reduced. And since the blocking agent is not particularly expensive, if they wanted to continue with it longer, they could.
Because of the debilitated condition of many junkies, and the inherent risk of being put into an artificial coma, there was as high as a 1% risk of death, though in practice much less. This was just a little more than the number of junkies who would typically die in a six months time frame no matter what.
Though such a relatively high rate of death, compared to other procedures, was quite high, this was suitable to bar the procedure from even being tested in the US.
aH yes, the methadonians... We see them a lot in the emergency deparment. I don’t think I can recall a time when I saw a methadonian lower their dosage. It is kinda like the Hotel Califonia, you can check in but you can’t check out.
If someone is taking the same dose of the same drug the physician would have prescribed, but they didn't get it from the pharmacy using a prescription from the doctor, all you've done is make it illegal to attempt to provide medical care for themselves.
There's something very wrong about that idea.
thats not what former addicts tell me. they say that methadone is just exchanging one addiction for another. The fact that its “legal” is no justification for addiction.
“This is the part of the ‘legalize drugs’ argument I despise. If someone wants to be addicted to drugs - ok, I guess. But why do taxpayers have to pay for the damage they do to their own lives?”
I, too, have fear drastic libertarian measures. Not because they are flawed in themselves, but because they wouldn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s the same reason I can’t advocate open borders, despite my sincere belief in them: the welfare state. Can’t very well let foreigners flood in willy-nilly, nor hop-heads roam the streets, so long as we have socialized medicine, socialized housing, socialized transportation, socialized lazing around the house, etc.
Nature has a cure for drug addiction. If you can’t work, you don’t eat. Without anyone subsidizing them, painkiller addicts who weren’t “functional,” as they say, would simply die. And that is the greatest motivator to get well there ever was.
“That is a very jaded perspective. That is like saying that announcing a study that drinking water is healthy is channeling sales of bottled water. Or that calling for more drilling is channeling more profits for Exxon Mobil.”
That’s a really bad analogy, as both mentioned are productive enterprises. No one would use methadone if it wasn’t free.
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