Hahaha. People who say methadone has no recreational value are brain dead. Methadone is a very potent opiate, with all of the typical opiate effects. It has a long half-life and conversely takes a long time to "kick-in" after taking a dose. This obviously reduces abuse potential a little bit, but the fact is, you can still get rocked just as good as if you'd done a big shot of heroin. The high is just more spread out over time. I used and was addicted to and dependent on Heroin for years, and still found Methadone to be a nice little treat every once in a while due to its long duration of action and relatively cheap cost.
Now, the difference for me is that I am on Methadone Maintenance Therapy. While I may experience the occasional fleeting buzz after taking my dose, I am largely unaffected by the drug after taking it consistently for so long. This, however, is irrelevant to this topic.
As for your cousin. First off, I wish I was him so I could just skip down to the opium field and grab some opium to smoke whenever I pleased buy hey, what are you gonna do. As we all know, Opium is just a blend of codeine and morphine. Smoking it is gonna give you a rush, there's no real equivalent to that when using methadone, even if you inject it. The fact is though, Oral Methadone should be WAY more potent than smoking raw opium. Obviously the credibility of this statement varies based upon dose.