Is methadone a desirable street drug, with high potential for drug abuse?
Though methadone is sometimes sold on the illicit drug market, most buyers of diverted methadone are active heroin users who won’t or can’t get into a methadone program. The extent of of abuse associated with diverted methadone is small relative to heroin, co-caine, and primary addiction to methadone is rare. With improper use of methadone, like that of almost any drug, can lead to overdose, overdose deaths attributed to methadone alone are few compared to heroin deaths. In its 1994 statement of emer-gency room incidents, the Drug Abuse Warning Network noted fifteen deaths, two-hundred fifty-one morphine/heroin deaths and thirteen aspirin deaths. Finally all methadone deaths are not neccessarily caused by illicitly purchased methadone, some are the results of accidental or inappropriate consumption of legally obtained methadone; often in combination with alcohol or some other drugs. ΒΆ TREATMENT OF OPIATE ADDICTION AS A METABOLIC DISEASE In the nineteen sixties, researchers at The Rocke
