Methadone Maintenance - Controversy

Controversy

Methadone maintenance is otherwise known as drug replacement therapy or RNT (Replacement Narcotic Therapy), and has been the subject of much controversy since its early creation. In the beginning, medical researchers responsible for the creation of these drug replacement therapy treatment facilities had high hopes that the methadone maintenance treatment would put an end to heroin addiction in America. However, as early as 1976, just 10 years into their project, Dr. Vincent Dole and his wife Marie E. Nyswander reported their findings to the Journal of the American Medical Association which stated that an unforeseen opposition to the substitution of one drug for the other appeared to be affecting the success of Methadone maintenance treatment programs. In the UK, the Criminal Justice System makes enquiries of arrested individuals into that persons substance misuse. An admittance of the use of Heroin will trigger a protocol that has been put in place that will see such individuals offered a place in a treatment program, often quicker than would have been possible had they not been arrested. Such an approach shows the obvious link between Heroin addiction and crime, with Heroin users often having to fund their drug use by means of theft, the total amount of property that has to be stolen in order to convert it to Heroin is quite high, with it thought that the stolen items are often sold for a fraction of the original cost, the value of the stolen goods makes a large impression on a localities crime figures. The placing of "career criminals" into Methadone maintenance programs will more often than not see the crime rate fall, and it is for this reason that many people in authority are in favour of the prescribing of Methadone, with it being seen as the lesser of two evils.