C.E.P.T.A.
The CAMPAIGN for EFFECTIVE PREVENTION and TREATMENT of ADDICTION.
6e. METHADONE: THE REAL STORY.
a CEPTA report
But don’t take the word of CEPTA alone. Read here fuller details of this scam - mainly in the words of the people who support and promote methadone.
(Executive Note: If you are familiar with the technical details – go to * at paragraph 7 below)
The “British National Formulary” medical textbook (which
is used by every doctor, pharmacist and nurse) lists the main characteristics
and usages of all drugs and other medication prescribed in
“Cautions: (i.e. not to be prescribed in the presence of) hypertension, hypothyroidism, asthma and decreased respiratory reserve, prosthetic hypertrophy; pregnancy and breast feeding; may precipitate coma in hepatic impairment; reduce dose or avoid in renal impairment, elderly and debilitated (reduce dose) convulsive disorders, dependence (severe withdrawal symptoms if withdrawn abruptly); use of cough suppressants containing opioid analgesics not generally recommended in children and should be avoided altogether in those under at least one year.
“Interactions: (i.e. not to be taken with or in the presence of) alcohol, anti-arrhythmic, anti-bacteria’s, anti-coagulants, anti-epileptics, anti-fungal, anti-psychotics, anti-viral, anxiolytics and hypnotics (including - benzodiazepines, nitrazepam, flunitrazepam, flurazepam, loprazolam, lormetazepam, temazepam, zolpidem, zopiclone, chloral hydrate, triclofos sodium, clomethiazole, anti-histamines, promethazine hydrochloride, diazepam, alprazolam, bromazepam, chlordiazepoxide, chlorazepate dipotassium, lorazepam, oxazepam, buspirone hydrochloride, beta-blockers and meprobamate) cisapride, dopaminergics, metoclopramide and domperidone and ulcer healing drugs.
“Contra-Indications: (i.e. not to be prescribed for) avoid in acute respiratory depression, acute alcoholism and where risk of paralytic ileus; not indicated for acute abdomen; also avoid in raised intracranial pressure or head injury (in addition to interfering with respiration, affects pupillary responses vital for neurological assessment); avoid injection in phaeochromocytoma (risk of pressor response to hystamine release).
“Side Effects: nausea and vomiting (particularly in initial stages), constipation and drowsiness; larger doses produce respiratory depression and hypotension; other side-effects include difficulty with micturition, ureteric or biliary spasm, dry mouth, sweating, head-ache, facial flushing, vertigo, bradycardia, tachycardia, palpitations, postural hypotension, hypothermia, hallucinations, dysphoria, mood changes, dependence, miosis, decreased libido or potency, rashes, urticaria and pruritus; and increase the risk of overdosage – see Emergency Treatment of Poisoning.
“Substance Dependence: “Methadone; is an opioid agonist, which can be substituted for opioids such as diamorphine (heroin), preventing the onset of withdrawal symptoms [as well as delaying and aborting attempts to withdraw]; BUT is itself addictive. “It is administered in a single daily dose usually as methadone mixture one mg / mL.
* Because of the above long-winded and often confusing technical features (most of which are comprehensible only to an inner circle of pharma-ceutical chemists) the politicians, civil servants, many GPs and the public for whom they prescribe have little understanding of the dangers they are letting themselves in for. And in those few cases where they might fully comprehend the technicalities, there is still the huge task of ensuring that this long list of potential problems are identified and avoided in every case.
It is little wonder that even those medical and pharmaceutical professionals, who most strongly support and most actively seek to further develop methadone prescribing, acknowledge that it remains a highly controversial and contentious activity (see: “The Methadone Briefing” – the methadone prescribers’ ‘bible’).
Despite many decades of promotion, intensive lobbying – both overt and covert - of politicians and civil service decision-makers, plus determined manipulation of resistive physicians, there remains deep suspicion of, and opposition to, methadone ‘treatment’ amongst drug services, professionals, the general public and the users themselves.
This comes not from the fact that it was invented in Nazi Germany at the start of World War II, but arises because it is unequivocally a powerfully addictive drug which, far from contributing in any way to a cure of opiate dependency, condemns the vast majority of patients to lifelong bio-chemical reliance upon, and control by, its psychiatric prescribers, its pharmaceutical suppliers and the State.
In fact pharmaceutical research and the promotion of methadone to our politicians has been based on persuading successive governments that (contrary to the truth) drug addiction is “not really curable”, as a result of which ‘reducing the harm’ which drug users can inflict on the broader community has been ‘sold’ to Cabinet Members as the theme they should adopt as the main thrust of government policy.
That this commits a patient to lifelong damaging methadone dependency, paid for by the U.K. taxpayer is dismissed by claiming that the prescribing of methadone can vastly reduce drug related crime – a goal which statistics and studies show has never been achieved by this form of intervention. (see: Big Issue in the North ‘Drugs at the Sharp End’ August 1999 study)
In fact 80% of patients on methadone maintenance programmes in three major U.K. cities admitted using another drug (usually heroin) at least once a week, whilst 44% confessed to using heroin on a daily basis, their methadone prescription being regarded merely as a free opiate supply.
This raises the question of how they can afford to buy heroin when most methadone patients’ meagre financial circumstances justify their being granted Unemployment Benefit, Income Support and / or Housing Allowance, etc. The answer unfortunately is that many of them continue the acquisitive life of crime learned when on heroin alone.
Although originally ‘sold’ to government as a means of being able to implement controlled detoxification of heroin dependent patients by using a methadone dose reduction programme, it was found that this practice promoted an intensity of withdrawal symptoms far more severe than coming off heroin, and so only seldom resulted in continuing abstinence.
In fact, resulting from experience, the earlier much vaunted claim that methadone can bring patients to full abstinence from all forms of opiate usage has essentially been abandoned, and emphasis has been more and more placed on ‘maintenance’ rather than clearly failing ‘reduction’ prescribing. The fact that maintenance sells bigger doses over a longer period, and thus creates more turnover and profit for the drug manufacturers, is said not to have been an influencing factor in their political lobbying tactics, but there is considerable proof to the contrary.
For instance, in this regard it is known that pharmaceutical drug company marketing chiefs regard any addict as a major source of turnover & profit who, because of his or her habituation, can not be otherwise.
Therefore, if his or her addiction can be based on methadone rather than on heroin, then the recipient of the increasing turnover and profit is the methadone producer and his marketing network of counsellors, doctors, psychiatrist, advice centres and pharmacists.
In addition to the methadone ‘treatment’ itself (so as to reduce the physical harm from taking the methadone) counselling and other support of both the patients and their families are claimed by the psycho-pharmaceutical lobby as essential to “keeping users on the methadone maintenance programme”. Bigger doses, sometimes at more frequent intervals, are also claimed to be necessary to stop methadone patients from also using other drugs – mainly heroin. This (it is claimed) is the real way to cut crime.
But police worry that former heroin users now on prescribed methadone are still mainly unemployed and, having learned the ease with which acquisitive crime can be carried out in our relatively open society, now have lots of time in which to plan and commit less detectable and more sophisticated offences – not just to feed their continuing heroin habit, but to ‘obtain’ for them the new TVs, videos, mobile phones, computers, motor bikes / cars, etc., necessary to their ‘keeping up with the Joneses’.
Prescribed methadone comes in a variety of formulations the main one being Methadone Mixture DTF 1mg / 1mL with the following features:
* Sugar content high. Associated with tooth decay in users and may interfere with
control of diabetes,
* Supply lines difficult to monitor and securely protect as produced by several
competing manufacturers,
* The tartrazine component, colourings and flavourings can cause allergic reaction
in some,
* The large volumes involved can make storage difficult for both pharmacists and
clients,
* Causes vein damage if injected,
* High sugar content and bright colour can attract children with the attendant
accidental overdose,
* Some clients insist that it causes weight gain,
* Large volume per mg means people have to drink large quantities.
* It can be time-consuming to make up,
* It can be confused with other medication,
* Increased risk of accidental overdose in higher concentrations.
Methadone is described as a relatively simple, synthetic compound that has similar effects to natural opiates.
It can therefore be fairly easy to produce illegally, but this is seldom undertaken as the large volume of legally produced supply in the market-place makes it comparatively easy to obtain by criminal / illegal / non-prescription means. It acts on many sites in the body, causing a complex range of reactions, and also interacts detrimentally with a number of other drugs and certain medical conditions.
Methadone overdose is strongly emphasised by physicians as being a serious medical emergency, necessitating urgent medical response, and in treating overdose it is stressed that methadone is a long-acting compound, responsible for numerous deaths, the numbers of which are still increasing even though policy is concentrated on their reduction.
The above attributes of the various formulations are mainly those listed by the professional supporters of methadone maintenance. Such methadone supporters and medical advocates also list the following effects:
* Euphoria but not as pronounced as with heroin (not as good a ‘high’)
* Partial pain relief, not by reducing sensitivity of the nerve endings but by interfering with signals to the brain,
* Drowsiness, including some clouding of thought. Can also include inability to concentrate, apathy, reduced physical activity, lethargy and reduced visual acuity.
* Causes sense impairment and may impair co-ordination and the ability to perform skilled tasks such as driving.
* The feelings of nausea associated with methadone are mainly the body’s natural reaction to the ingesting of any toxic substance. Some vomiting may also occur, but this may also be due to excessive alcohol use, eating large meals, pre-existing eating or stomach disorders, e.g. ulcers. All of these can be exacerbated by the slowing of the movements of the intestine (constipation) by methadone.
* Respiratory depression must be checked regularly. It is caused by a direct inhibitor effect on the brain stem reception centres and by depressing the action of the centres which regulate the breathing rhythm. Coupled with heavy smoking, this can result in methadone users contracting chronic and / or serious chest infections.
* Methadone also has a direct suppressant effect on the cough centre in the medulla, responsible for clearing irritation of the lower airways.
* Users arms and legs can start feeling heavy - reasons not known.
* Doses in excess of the normal range, can cause convulsions.
* Methadone reduces secretions of saliva, tears and mucous in the respiratory tract, resulting in dryness of the mouth, eyes and nose.
* Various methadone induced reactions and the waves of muscular contraction that propel the stomach contents through the large bowel can be virtually stopped by the drug, resulting in severe constipation which is almost universal amongst methadone users.
* Methadone creates a high degree of pupil constriction (miosis), so much so that the size of the users pupils is a reliable indicator of the level of methadone in the blood stream, especially as tolerance to this effect is only partial, even after long-term usage.
* Some difficulty with urination is also reported, arising from two separate effects of the drug.
* Methadone enters mast cells, triggers the release of histamine and so causes blushing, itching, flushing of the skin and sweating. This effect also causes constricting of the airways. These are not things to which people develop a tolerance.
* Sweating is a common long-term problem in methadone users and histamine release can only be partly to blame, there being other not yet fully understood mechanisms at work.
* In women, reduced or absent menstrual cycle (amenorrhoea).
* Users often mentions hallucinations as an effect.
* Sweating of feet and ankles in early stages of methadone use.
* About four hours after an oral dose there may be pounding of the heart for a period. Cause not known.
* Anxiety may be increased or reduced in methadone users.
Effects on babies:
* The problems listed in this regard are alarming when put together, and the standard reference guide: “Drugs in pregnancy & lactation” is recommended to doctors handling women on methadone.
* It is considered that the withdrawal symptoms from heroin in babies is less prevalent and less severe than methadone withdrawal symptoms, and that it may be safer for mothers to use heroin rather than methadone up to delivery.
* The main problems following methadone use during pregnancy are stillbirth, low birth weight, withdrawal symptoms in the baby, respiratory depression at birth, a raised incidence of jaundice and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome raised mortality.
Some Important Aspects of the Law:
* Under the Misuse of Drugs Act methadone is a Class A controlled drug. Its production and distribution without the appropriate licence, and its use or possession without a prescription is a criminal act subject to penalties equal to those established for heroin & crack, etc.
*
Methadone is a prescription-only drug, manufactured solely by the
pharmaceutical industry for the NHS. It cannot be bought privately, so its
supply, and the profits of the pharmaceutical producers are paid for wholly by
* The regulations governing the prescribing, the dispensing and collection of doses, the storage of supplies, the ‘destruction’ or disposal of out-of-date supplies, the notices, the authorised personnel, the reporting procedures and implementation of a host of other administrative and legal requirements are detailed, complex and obviously very prone to both accidental and deliberate abuse.
* The Road Traffic Act considers methadone use a disability, and users will normally not be granted a driving licence for longer than one year. There is a lengthy series of screening tests which can result in non-issue or withdrawal of a licence. Where there is usage of other drugs in addition to methadone, no licence will be issued or an existing licence will be withdrawn.
* Prescription methadone users are not permitted to hold licences for Heavy Goods Vehicles and / or Passenger Service Vehicles
* It is an offence to be in charge of a vehicle if ‘unfit to drive through drink or drugs’ – including prescription drugs.
* Doctors, upon recognising that a patient is unlikely to be fit to drive by virtue of methadone use, are expected to inform the police or other necessary authority of the situation. Some doctors are however reluctant to breach client confidentiality. As a result there are numerous methadone using drivers breaking the law – many of them doing so just by driving with neither a licence nor an insurance.
* With drug related road accidents now beginning to overtake alcohol related accidents, this is a devastating situation for other motorists, passengers and pedestrians who may become the victims of injury or death from drivers under the control of the prescribed legal methadone circulating in their blood-stream.
* “Assessment of methadone dose size and frequency is NOT an exact science, and there is almost certainly more risk in mis-prescribing than in not prescribing”. (From the methadone prescribers’ ‘bible’.)
* In fact, assessment, prescription and dispensing are the three main activities carried out in the whole NHS drug therapy system.
Achieving a cure of addition is not a goal of psycho-pharmacological therapy. That therapy’s goal is most usually expressed as ‘habit ‘management’, ‘maintenance’ or ‘reduction of drug related harm’.
‘The Methadone Briefing’ prescribers’ ‘bible’ proclaims that: “Treatment should aim to reduce drug-related harm”, and concerns itself primarily with the effects upon the addict of methadone treatment.
However, whilst methadone prescription is promoted as the way to reduce the harm an addict is doing to himself as a heroin user, because methadone is more damaging to the individual than heroin, it is clear that methadone is being given by the authorities in order ‘hopefully’ to reduce the harm a heroin addict can inflict upon the society - rather than on himself.
By virtue of their prescription status and in addition to their receiving:
1) their free supply of methadone,
registered methadone users are also most often to be found in receipt of
2) Unemployment Benefit, 3) Income Support,
4) Housing Allowance, and 5) Additional medical care.
And because all of these are paid for by the society, they are a huge and harmful financial burden on the society. However, methadone creates even more burdens for the tax-payer and other citizens.
Local GPs receive fees for prescribing methadone, pharmacists receive fees for dispensing methadone and the pharmaceutical manufacturers are paid a price for methadone which includes a profit for them. And all these wasteful costs are paid for by the taxpayer and all this outflow of money harms our society by depriving more essential societal factors of support. e.g. better housing, better health, better education and so on.
It is wasteful because there is a much simpler and better alternative.
The amount of taxpayers’ money which sustains a prescription methadone addict for life (a life often just as criminal a that of the illicit heroin user) would pay five times over for that addict to achieve comfortable abstinence for life by internationally proven non-drug based rehabilitation methods .
Of course, the psycho-pharmaceutical industry and its fellow travellers would lose a lot of income and so would fight curative treatment of addiction tooth and nail. But who would they really be fighting? The society at large and the taxpayers who sustain it.
The methadone promoter’s ‘bible’ (“The Methadone Briefing”) tells us that ‘relapse’ is a common successor to maintenance therapy, and that relapse can take place several times for many prescription methadone users !
It is incredulous that ‘relapse’ is defined as a return to previous drug using habits. i.e. a move back to illicit heroin and away from prescribed methadone, when the truth is that all the user is doing is ‘changing his brand’ now and then, just as whisky drinkers and cigarette smokers do.
Cigarettes are tobacco, spirits are alcohol and opiates are drugs no matter their name or legal legitimacy, and the pretence that a move from one opiate to another, from a legal opiate to an illicit is a ‘relapse’, is a further confirmation that methadone therapy is with us solely because politicians and other decision-makers have been convincingly led by psycho-pharmaceutical interests to wrongly believe that those interests can handle both harm to the society as well as harm to the individual opiate user.
Nothing could be further from the truth, and the history of the last quarter century has exposed these claims as totally false.
One is told that “Treatment should aim to reduce drug-related harm”, the implication being that methadone maintenance therapy will achieve that.
But in fact the promoters of methadone list “A full menu of (17) services to support methadone treatment” under the heading of “Harm Reduction”. These are designated as important “in supporting and enhancing the outcome of methadone treatment”. In other words, these 17 items are to reduce the harm of the methadone. So what is the methadone itself actually doing? What healing or other treatment factor is it delivering? What is the outcome? Because we know that it is seldom if ever ‘comfortable abstinence for life’.
Furthermore, the methadone promoters’ and prescribers’ ‘bible’, “The Methadone Briefing” gives stern warning that “methadone is not an innocuous treatment” and that inappropriate prescribing of it can:
* Cause fatal overdose !
* Simply increase a person’s total drug consumption !
* Increase the drug related chaos in a person’s life !
* Supply the illicit market !
* Demoralise prescribing physicians and other staff
* Reduce respect for the prescriber amongst users and helpers
* Reduce the client’s motivation & ability to achieve abstinence !
* Create (and increase) opiate dependence !
But aren’t these the very problems that methadone is supposed to handle?
Could it be that ‘methadone as harm reduction’ is a myth? Why otherwise is a whole chapter in ‘The Methadone Briefing’ needed on “methadone detoxification”? Why also is there guidance on the prescribing of heroin as an alternative to methadone? Isn’t prescription methadone supposed to achieve eventual abstinence from heroin use? Or is it now vice-versa?
Advice on methadone dosage levels starts by rightly warning that “methadone is a potentially lethal drug”, and the whole section on dosage could be summed up in the plea: “for God’s sake be careful”. One learns that “Accidental overdose is one of the greatest risks of methadone prescribing”.
Yet prescribing too little is also listed as a problem.
It may come as a surprise to find that methadone “detoxification” is needed not just because methadone itself is a toxin, but because detoxification is an experiment in testing out whether or not a patient ‘might’ just conceivably be ready to give up opiate drugs.
The patient’s body is to a degree cleansed of opiates (mainly by gradiently reducing the methadone dose), and then fingers are kept crossed to see if he is able to ‘get along’ without further prescriptions. (This action is also used to provide evidence to politicians that ‘reduction’ is still attempted.)
This detoxification is described as “relatively easy to achieve”, BUT, “long-term abstinence from opiate use is much harder to achieve” and “most opiate users will undergo detoxification many times before they achieve longer periods opiate free”. We are also told that methadone prescription users who thus “become abstinent are vulnerable to relapse”.
Some practitioners say that the best reason for giving methadone to a heroin user is because methadone can ‘legally’ be consumed, so that the user is not burdened with anxiety about being considered a criminal. This is also used as an argument for legalising prescribed heroin. But the real truth is that, because comfortable lifelong abstinence can so straightforwardly be made available to a majority of opiate users, there is no reason for anyone to get into diversionary arguments about legal -v- illegal labelling.
In Section 10 of “The Methadone Briefing” under the heading of ‘Recreational Drug Use’, the real truth about the effectiveness of methadone ‘therapy’ further emerges as we are officially warned as follows:
“Most people on methadone prescriptions continue to take other drugs in addition to their methadone . . . .”. And we know from the Big Issue in the North study: “Drugs at the Sharp End” that 80% of methadone users use another drug (usually heroin) once a week and that 44% of those on methadone prescription continue to use heroin on a DAILY basis. In addition we are told that “a significant minority of people on methadone prescriptions have a concurrent alcohol dependence”, and such dependency also often applies to cannabis.
As a result, the question as to exactly what useful result the prescribing of methadone is attaining must again be asked. Because after the decades during which psycho-pharmacological methadone based ‘treatment’ has been in control of the users and the factors affecting “demand” for drugs, the only results evident are that the amount of drugs being used and the number of chronic users has escalated every year and that the number of new young drug users being enrolled has also increased every year, and continues to do so.
In other words, there is no effective prevention and no effective cure – the only factors capable of permanently solving the worlds drug problems. Furthermore, whenever a proposal is made for finding or adopting any alternative strategy for the reduction of drug demand, it is the status quo psycho-pharmaceutical lobbyists who appear to cry most loudly about the necessity for ‘evidence based drug treatment.
YET, there is more than ample evidence that their methadone treatments cure no-one, and that they should be abandoned as soon as possible, if only because they are exacerbating a problem, which would clearly be smaller in the absence of their policies based on daily giving away tons of seriously addictive drugs at public expense. This is not demand reduction – it is stimulation of demand, as the historical statistical evidence demonstrates.
The psycho-pharmaceutical lobby has for decades held itself out as the experts in the field of drug treatment, yet it is obvious that methadone has during that period been recommended to political decision-makers basically in order to provide turnover and profit to that lobby. To sustain their position and to keep out real and effective cures of addiction, those lobbyists have taken every opportunity to convince politicians and civil servants that drug addiction is an incurable condition – which is a total lie.
The main means used to convince successive governments are false ideas, cover-ups, self ‘regulation’, self-examination (NTORS) and downright lies. At the same time, organisations such as the National Treatment Agency for substance misuse, the Drug Action Teams network, the Home Office, the
DoH, the National Health Service and the DoES have been ‘seeded’ with senior employees who were formerly (or perhaps continue to be) employees of the lobbyists. (Mike Trace/George Soros and DrugScope demand study.)
In addition, continuous attacks - both covert and overt - have been made on those rehabilitation systems capable of delivering effective and valuable outcomes. Results which would expose the methadone fraud. Such attacks have included side-lining and marginalising them politically and especially – because many of the successful anti-drug operations are charities - by depriving them of funding via black PR campaigns. (N.D.P.A. is an example)
So the real question is: “EXACTLY WHAT USEFUL RESULT IS THE COSTLY PRESCRIBING (AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE) OF TOXIC AND ADDICTIVE METHADONE ACHIEVING?” And it must be asked over & over until we have a proper answer.
But of course a proper answer to this question depends on whom you ask.
1) The addict’s viewpoint: An opiate addict uses the drug in order to obtain the euphoric ‘high’. The appalling disadvantage is of course the often insufferable ‘hangover’ as he ‘comes down’ from the high. But a heroin user does not get as good a ‘high’ from methadone, the one doubtful ‘benefit’ being the fact that, whilst heroin withdrawal effects start to kick in after 8 to 12 hours, the longer acting methadone holds off the onset of what is an even more painful and extremely stressful withdrawal for 24 hours.
As a result, a dose of heroin, followed 5 to 10 hours later by a dose of methadone can be a great way to pass the day, except that 70% of addicts who have been on heroin and / or methadone for 3 or more years, run into severe depressive periods during which the only thing which appeals is a desire for comfortable lifelong abstinence and a normal existence.
Therefore, the real value of methadone from the user’s viewpoint is not that it is in any way ‘better’, but that it is ‘legal’, ‘free’ and great to have around as long as it can be regularly complemented with heroin.
2) The taxpayers’ viewpoint: It is not known to the majority of taxpayers that they pay for methadone to be given to addicts, plus paying prescription fees, dispensing fees, unemployment benefit, housing allowance, income support and extra medical treatment. Of those who do know, a minority see methadone prescription as probably worthwhile IF it cuts acquisitive crime and IF its use actually results in a cure of the addiction for a majority of users – neither of which it achieves.
3) The political viewpoint: For decades successive governments have been sold the false idea by vested interests that drug addiction is an in-curable illness and a basically un-solvable problem. That, as a result, government should no longer seek a cure but should capitulate to the idea that, in order to “reduce harm”, they should let the psycho-pharmaceutical industry “manage” drug addiction by prescribing methadone. But because methadone has never produced any of the results promised to politicians, the failure has had to be hidden and/or explained away in a variety of ways.
“Its not the methadone it’s the incurable nature of the drug problem!” “Its not the methadone, it’s the addicts who are crafty and criminal, so we should give them more to get them under better control!”. “Its not the methadone, it’s the system which needs overhauling – again!”, etc.
Most politicians continue to know nothing about the realities of the drug problem. They continue to be misled into relying on their own ‘health’ experts, who are mainly psycho-pharmacists or are controlled by pharmaceutical interests, so that the confusion in politicians’ minds is continuously re-generated by the methadone manufacturers and prescribers.
Significant is the fact that the public service department with the biggest drug misuse problem is the National Health Service. And it is a special department of the NHS which is now responsible for national drug treatment (the NTA), and – in the words of a leading MP – “all they seem capable of promoting is methadone, methadone and more methadone”.
4) The psycho-pharmaceutical viewpoint: This combined lobby prescribes the methadone, manufactures it, dispenses it and convinces government to pay for it through the NHS - and from taxpayers’ funds.
Then, out of the enormous profits they make (not only from methadone but also from prescription of an increasing range of tax-payer funded mind-bending drugs to schoolchildren) they spend huge sums on protecting the virtual monopoly they have built up in the addiction “treatment” field – including cutting off the supply of large dose vitamins used by effective non-pharmaceutical cure-based systems.
That trade protection strategy is multi-faceted and goes as far as usurping real drug prevention training in schools by replacing it with so-called ‘drugs education’. This is based on ‘Harm Reduction’ concepts which teach children ‘about’ how to use drugs, instead of training them towards real primary prevention goals.
This so-called ‘drugs education’ is based on the defeatist self-fulfilling idea that for most people drug use is inevitable, and therefore our children should know how to choose & use drugs, not how to refuse them.
‘Informed Choice’ (of drugs), ‘Responsible Use’ (of drugs) & ‘Safe Use’ (of drugs), are all headings in this litany of concepts designed to ensure that our children will use drugs and that they will use more and more of them . . . . Just as the whole methadone prescription programme is designed to ensure that more and more of our population will use more and more methadone, to be paid for out of the public purse.
Methadone’s record over the last three or four decades proves beyond doubt that methadone is not a solution to drugs or to drug related crime. It is a money-maker for huge vested interests, and as a result, the business it generates will be protected by them at all costs - likely by acknowledging its short-comings, followed by announcing a ‘NEW and much more effective’ successor - or even just by changing its name!
Legalisation, whether by prescription or in other ways, increases drug demand, increases drug production and increases drug profits, and the manufacturers produce methadone only if paid for by taxpayers, as it is self-evident that the methadone users are themselves incapable of paying the manufacturers for the user’s daily supplies. So payments from the public purse are what keep the whole problem in place.
One-fifth of the sums expended on giving an addict free methadone and on supporting him for the rest of his life, would allow that same addict to achieve comfortable abstinence for the whole of his life, whilst making him into a fully employable model citizen who contributes to his community and costs the state nothing.
And this form of fully rehabilitative residential treatment reduces the problem every time the taxpayers spend that lower amount of money on restoring an addicts life and on bringing him or her back into the community as a model citizen.
In 39 countries there are currently over 150 public rehabilitation centres plus prison units where such lifelong comfortable abstinence is achieved in 69 to 84% of cases, based on a programme developed in the Arizona State Prison System 38 years ago. That’s just as long as many national methadone programmes have been going. The difference is that whilst methadone is plummeting us all towards a bio-chemically dependent society, the other is delivering drug-free living, reduced criminality and a happier, safer and more affluent society. So . . is it really a difficult choice?
© Copyright C.E..P.T.A. and E. Kenneth Eckersley, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 & 2005. All World Rights Reserved
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