Final Paper – HLTH 1050 – Online
By: Madison Lund
There are many issues going on everyday with drugs, so to pick one specific issue is
difficult. Of course, there’s the war on drug itself, there’s the argument on legalization of
marijuana, heroin abuse & trafficking, prescription drug abuse & so many more. Rather than
picking a drug that is abused, I decided to research a drug that has hit close to home for me &
that can be abused, but is actually supposed to be used to get people off of drugs although it
has some very scary side effects. I chose to research the issues on the drug Methadone, (also
known as Symoron, Dolophine, Amidone, Methadose, Physeptone & Heptadon) & the
Methadone clinics themselves. Methadone is a synthetic opioid which is used medically as an
analgesic & a maintenance anti-addictive & reductive preparation for use by patients with
opioid dependency.
I chose to research this drug specifically because as I said, it hits close to home. A few
years ago, my brother had developed a dependency with heroin. He went through detox,
rehab, therapy & much more, but never seemed to be able to stay clean. He had learned from a
friend of the drug Methadone & that to obtain the drug, you simply had to walk in to a
Methadone clinic, meet with a therapist & you can get it right on the spot. As an addict, this
sounds ideal, right? We all had heard the horror stories of Methadone & were trying to get him
to try anything, but that. He ended up getting his hands on a small dose from a friend to try that
night before bed. My mother went in the next morning to wake him & found him dead. His
death was ruled an “accidental overdose” because of the small dose that was taken & that it
was the only thing in his system. How it was described to us is that simply, the drug made him
“forget to breathe”. The dose that was in his system was enough to kill him without anything
else in his system… The crazy part? The dose that he had was even smaller than what is given
out for first time treatment at an actual Methadone clinic! We talked to many doctors &
therapists to try to understand more what & how it happened & if it could have been changed
had he actually gone to a clinic for the drug. They all told us the same thing – he had overdosed
with such a small dose, had he gone to a clinic & gotten it prescribed through them, he would
have died on the drive home. The issue is not within whether you get it from a clinic, a friend, a
dealer, etc. etc.; it is with the drug itself. To this day, there are more & more deaths each year
caused by this drug & in my opinion, it is doing much more harm than good. Although I’ve done
a lot of research, read a lot of stories about the drug, I really wanted to take the opportunity for
this paper to research not only the stories & the effects on so many different people, but the
drug itself & why it has the side effects that it does, yet is made so readily available.
When starting my research on Methadone, I wanted to find out about the history of the
drug & how it even came about. Methadone was developed in Germany in 1937 for the simple
reason that back then, Germany required a reliable internal source of opiates. Because it is an
acyclic analog of morphine or heroin, methadone acts on the same opioid receptors of these
drugs & therefore, has many of the same effects. Methadone can be used for managing severe
chronic pain, but currently is used mainly for the treatment of opiate dependence. Methadone
was then introduced into the United States in 1947 by Eli Lilly & Company & as I said, is
currently being used in Methadone clinics around the country to treat opiate dependence.
So, why use Methadone for treatment? It has a cross-tolerance (tolerance to similar
drugs) with other opioids including heroin & morphine & has many of the same effects, but an
even longer duration of effect. Although Methadone definitely is able to get someone off of
opiates, I do not see the good it is doing when Methadone can be just as addictive as opiates,
causes even worse withdrawl symptoms & causes over 5,000 overdose deaths per year in the
United States. So why are people continuing to believe that this could work & why is it
continuing to be used for treatment? It has been found that oral doses of methadone can
stabilize patients by reducing or making opioid withdrawl syndrome more tolerable, but as I
said, then what happens when you are trying to come off of Methadone? As an addict that is
trying to come off of opiates, this seems ideal to help with the withdrawl symptoms, but once
they have gotten through their withdrawl from opiates, all they are looking at is another
addiction, but now to Methadone & if at whatever point they decide to come off of
Methadone, the withdrawls from Methadone can last anywhere from 2-5 months! Medically,
higher doses of methadone can block the euphoric effects of heroin, morphine & similar drugs
so as a result, it is believed that if a patient is properly dosed, Methadone will reduce &/or stop
altogether their craving & use of these substances.
As far as the actual treatment of opiate addicted persons with Methadone, MMT
(Methadone Maintenance Therapy) is the most common kind of treatment being given. This is
for individuals who are wanting to abstain from illicit drug use, but have failed to maintain
sobriety for significant periods of time. The duration of the Methadone Maintenance Therapy
program can last for months, to even years. My question… How are we truly helping that
person with addiction, when all that is being accomplished is giving them something else to be
addicted to?! Another kind of treatment with Methadone is various Methadone Reduction
Programs. These programs are suitable for addicted persons who wish to stop using drugs
altogether. The length of the reduction programs will depend on the starting dose & speed of
reduction which varies from clinic to clinic & person to person.
As far as the doses of Methadone given, it obviously varies from clinic to clinic, to
patient to patient, but when it comes to the majority of patients that are using Methadone for
opioid dependence therapy, they require anywhere from 80-125 mg/d of Methadone. The
biggest thing that stands out to me, is that Methadone maintenance is a corrective treatment,
but it is NOT a curative treatment for opiate addiction, therefore, I find it hard to believe it is
really helping these addicts in anyway, because all this drug is really doing is giving them
something else to be addicted to, something else to be dependent on. All it is really doing is
making their addiction a little more organized. Although, as I said, average doses of Methadone
are anywhere from 80-125 mg/d. Because of the fact that lower does are sometimes not as
effective or do not provide equivalent blockade effect as higher dosages can, some patients will
be prescribed up to 325 mg. of Methadone per day. As I mentioned above while speaking to
doctors about the dose my brother was given, we were told that because of the small dose that
it was, had he even gone through a clinic, he would have died on the way home. Reason being,
it has been found that a dose as low as 30 mg. of Methadone can be fatal in an opiate addicted
individual that simply lack cross tolerance to other opioids; Which brings me to the main reason
that I decided to research this drug specifically… You consider the doses that are being given of
this drug, the availability of this drug & the proven fatality of this drug with the high number of
overdose deaths per year & you have to ask yourself, what good is this drug really even doing?
Methadone is a drug that is supposed to be helping, right? Well, in a study done in the years
1999 – 2005, it was found the deaths had quadrupled just in that period of time & the number
is continuously going up as the years go on! In a study done in 2006, medical examiners had
listed Methadone as contributing to about 4,000 deaths in the year 2004 alone. It was also
found that just about 82 percent of those deaths had been ruled “accidental overdose”, just as
my brother’s death was. In 2006, the U.S Food & Drug Administration even issued a caution
about Methadone, titled “Methadone Use For Pain Control May Result In Death”. This drug is
not helping addicts & it is not helping the sick. It is extremely unstable & hard to predict & that
is not a drug that should be made so available.
Bottom line, the argument continues on whether Methadone is truly doing good or bad,
but you can’t deny the numbers. Overdose deaths by Methadone are on the rise, addictions to
Methadone are raising just as quickly & no matter the studies that have been done to try to put
Methadone in a positive light, the numbers are there & they do are not proving anything, but
that this drug needs to no longer be made available.