Methadone - Consequences

Consequences

When used properly, methadone can literally save lives. Heroin users expose themselves to many deadly diseases, including HIV and hepatitis (a liver disease), when they share dirty needles. Heroin users are also prone to commit crimes or indulge in risky behavior. By stopping heroin use, the cycle of the desperate pursuit of the next "fix" ends. A thirty-one-year-old recovering heroin addict, quoted in the York Daily Record, said he rode a bus two hours each way from his home every day for his methadone treatments. Admitting he had been jailed "at least ten times," the man said that methadone "gives me the ability to get on with my day." While methadone treatment for drug abuse is not easy, quick, or always successful, it does offer hope to people who are harming themselves and others.

As a prescription painkiller, methadone use must be monitored very carefully for the potential of poisonous build-up in the body. Doctors prescribing it for pain need to be quite knowledgeable about how to adjust the doses and how to monitor patients for overdose. Patients must be aware that they need to take the medicine exactly as prescribed or face possibly fatal consequences. Doctors must be particularly careful when patients are taking any other medications, either prescription or over-the-counter drugs. When used as a prescription painkiller, methadone is typically a drug of last resort.

Any use of methadone with other drugs and alcohol in a recreational setting can be fatal. Failure to store the medicine properly can lead to poisoning in children. Crushing methadone pills and snorting or injecting them for recreational use can cause death, sometimes many hours or even a day or two after use. Methadone overdose generally causes the user to fall asleep, and the sleep then deepens into a coma that ends when the user's breathing stops.

Methadone is a habit-forming drug. Community leaders often fight against having methadone clinics in their neighborhoods because the clinics attract drug abusers who may have committed criminal acts. Anyone considering experimentation with methadone should keep in mind that those who really need the drug have very difficult lives with extremely challenging mental or physical illnesses.