Drug Methadone

Heroin use among young folks has been climbing at alarming rates over the past few years. Heroin is not just a drug found on skid row; instead it is right in almost every school system, with more and more young students experiencing heroin withdrawals requiring a need for new treatments.

Traditional treatments have not shown much success in getting patients free from the heroin. Mainly Methadone treatment is used to relieve heroin withdrawals but has some pitfalls that some of the newer medications overcome. Methadone is a full opiate and basically just a switch from an illegal drug to one that is legal and actually harder to get off of than heroin itself. Methadone is also very tightly regulated by the government and has a high abuse potential as well as overdose deaths. It can only be dispensed at government regulated clinics and patients must report to the clinic every day to receive their dose. Sometimes patients must travel many miles to get to a clinic because there are few clinics around.

Some newer treatments have successfully overcome some of the negative issues associated with methadone. Suboxone, sometimes referred to as the “miracle drug” has been very successful in relieving withdrawal symptoms of heroin and getting patients free from the grips of their addiction. Within just a few weeks patients begin tapering the suboxone and finally get off of the suboxone without experiencing any withdrawals and becoming completely drug free. Suboxone can be administered by a physician and taken home by the patient. This allows the patient to have more flexibility and not be tied to a clinic. It also enables those who cannot get to a methadone clinic to receive treatment. Because Suboxone has an ingredient that will cause severe withdrawals if it is abused there is a smaller likelihood of it being abused and because it is only a partial opiate overdose does not occur if it is abused.

Methadone has been around for some time and is still used widely. For some patients it is still is the best treatment and it all depends upon the patient and their professional who is helping them. However it is good that there are other options to deal with the relief of heroin withdrawals with newer treatments.

Abusing Methadone: A Misunderstood Drug (1 Letter)
Re “Many Fatal Overdoses Linked to Methadone” (Vital Signs, July 10): It is true that methadone has a long half-life of 16 to 24 hours, which is why it only has to be given once daily for the treatment of opioid addiction in order to prevent withdrawal …
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Abusing Methadone: Tiffin doctor faces several drug counts
"He was dispensing methadone for addiction purposes, which you have to have proper licensing for that," said detective Charles Boyer, coordinator of Seneca County Drug Task Force's METRICH enforcement unit. "You can't dispense it without the proper …
Read more on Toledo Blade

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