VOX--German Lopez
Robert Lepolszki had kicked his heroin addiction. In 2014, the 28-year-old from Long Island was in a methadone treatment program — which lets addicts replace heroin, a very deadly opioid, with methadone, a safer opioid that doesn't produce a euphoric high like heroin, to suppress withdrawal symptoms. For him, methadone acted like medicine for heroin addiction.
But then Lepolszki was arrested for an old drug sale and placed in front of a drug court, which push addicts to treatment instead of jail. These courts tend to take a hard line on addiction, and this court was no different. Judge Frank Gulotta Jr. said Lepolszki could only avoid incarceration if he quit all drugs — including methadone, the one drug keeping him off heroin.
Methadone treatment programs "are crutches — they are substitutes for drugs and drug cravings without enabling the participant to actually rid him or herself of the addiction," Gulotta wrote, NBC 4's Ann Givens and Chris Glorioso reported. "It must be remembered, the purpose of this program is to rid the participant of all addictions."
Lepolszki died of a heroin overdose six months later.
Gulotta, like other critics of methadone treatments, was repeating a common refrain: Using methadone to quit heroin only replaces one drug with another.
But as drug and science journalist Maia Szalavitz explained in the New York Times, this line of thought fundamentally misunderstands drug addiction and why it's a problem:
Under this view, methadone isn't an addiction. The drug is not anywhere as deadly as heroin if used as advised. And since it doesn't produce a euphoric high like heroin, it doesn't lead to addicts looking for more and more as their tolerance increases, which raises their chances of overdose. It is, simply, a medication for opioid addiction.
(Heroin is the bottom-light blue line, opioid painkillers-top line)
more: http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/9009253/methadone-addiction-drug-courts
Robert Lepolszki had kicked his heroin addiction. In 2014, the 28-year-old from Long Island was in a methadone treatment program — which lets addicts replace heroin, a very deadly opioid, with methadone, a safer opioid that doesn't produce a euphoric high like heroin, to suppress withdrawal symptoms. For him, methadone acted like medicine for heroin addiction.
But then Lepolszki was arrested for an old drug sale and placed in front of a drug court, which push addicts to treatment instead of jail. These courts tend to take a hard line on addiction, and this court was no different. Judge Frank Gulotta Jr. said Lepolszki could only avoid incarceration if he quit all drugs — including methadone, the one drug keeping him off heroin.
Methadone treatment programs "are crutches — they are substitutes for drugs and drug cravings without enabling the participant to actually rid him or herself of the addiction," Gulotta wrote, NBC 4's Ann Givens and Chris Glorioso reported. "It must be remembered, the purpose of this program is to rid the participant of all addictions."
Lepolszki died of a heroin overdose six months later.
Gulotta, like other critics of methadone treatments, was repeating a common refrain: Using methadone to quit heroin only replaces one drug with another.
But as drug and science journalist Maia Szalavitz explained in the New York Times, this line of thought fundamentally misunderstands drug addiction and why it's a problem:
Under this view, methadone isn't an addiction. The drug is not anywhere as deadly as heroin if used as advised. And since it doesn't produce a euphoric high like heroin, it doesn't lead to addicts looking for more and more as their tolerance increases, which raises their chances of overdose. It is, simply, a medication for opioid addiction.
(Heroin is the bottom-light blue line, opioid painkillers-top line)
more: http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/9009253/methadone-addiction-drug-courts
