Dealing With Heroin Addiction Through Methadone Treatment
In the 1970s, public and private methadone clinics were put up in the United States and in some other countries to fight heroin addiction. Developed in Germany in 1937, methadone was discovered to be effective in blocking the desire for heroin.
What exactly is methadone, and how does a methadone clinic work in dealing with heroin addiction?
Methadone was originally developed for use as an analgesic and antitussive. It is a synthetic opioid; that is, it is a chemical that works by binding to opioid receptors, which are found mainly in the central nervous system. Subsequently, methadone's medical use was expanded to include that of being a maintenance anti-addictive for use in patients on opioids.
Although methadone is chemically different from heroin, it produces many of the same effects of heroin by acting on the opioid receptors. The purpose for which methadone clinics were established is to dispense methadone (Dolophine) to those who abuse heroin and other opiates, in the hope of reducing or eliminating opiate usage by maintaining patients on methadone.
It is important to understand a number of things about heroin addiction in order to have a full grasp of why methadone has become a form of prescribed treatment for it.
Heroin is a habit-forming narcotic so powerful it depresses the central nervous system and puts the user in a temporary euphoric state. The condition eventually leads to drowsiness, nausea, and depression of the body's crucial respiratory functions. About 3 to 8 hours after the addict injects himself with heroin, the effect of the drug begins to fade. As this happens, the addict is driven to seek more heroin before he goes into complete withdrawal.
The idea behind the establishment of methadone clinics was to get drug abusers to replace their illicit, socially destructive and costly habit with a drug that was less debilitating, stopped the craving for heroin, and would be administered under careful medical supervision. That drug was methadone. While methadone can be injected, it is usually dispensed orally as a tablet or syrup in methadone clinics.
There are concerns that methadone patients can, in turn, be hooked for life with the drug. Indeed most methadone patients are liable to be hooked with the drug, although a number of them do go on to become completely treated. It is not difficult to understand this concern, based from the simple fact that methadone treatment consists basically of replacing one drug for another.
Another concern is that many heroin addicts receive treatment only temporarily, and are often lured back to heroin, which produces a greater high. Some studies likewise indicate that methadone users are often polydrug abusers (i.e., those who abuse several drugs at one time).
In the absence of better forms of therapy, however, methadone treatment remains a choice when it comes to dealing with heroin addiction.