NCJ Number
169253
Date Published
1998
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This chapter discusses the effectiveness of methadone as a treatment for heroin addiction.
Abstract
Methadone can be used to detoxify heroin addicts, but most addicts--using methadone or any other method--return to heroin use. Therefore, the goal of methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is to reduce and even eliminate heroin use among addicts by stabilizing them on methadone for as long as is necessary to help them keep their lives together and avoid returning to previous patterns of drug use. The benefits of MMT have been established by hundreds of scientific studies and there are almost no negative health consequences of long-term methadone treatment, even when it continues for 20 or 30 years. MMT, which costs on average about $4,000 per patient per year, reduces the criminal behavior associated with illegal drug use; promotes health by reducing the frequency of injecting and needle sharing; and improves social productivity by allowing many patients to stabilize their lives and return to legitimate employment, all of which serves to reduce the societal costs of drug addiction. Incarceration, by comparison, costs $20,000- to $40,000 per patient per year and residential drug treatment programs cost $13,000- to $20,000 per year. Methadone could be prescribed and delivered even less expensively through physicians in general medical practice, low-service clinics and pharmacies.