As I read the June 4 article, “Groups eye methadone clinic sites,” on methadone clinics being opened in Snohomish County, I couldn’t help but cringe. To state methadone does not get addicts high is complete and utter nonsense. Before I got clean, I was on several methadone “maintenance” programs – methadone gets you high.
These programs are out for money, non-profit or not. The clinics take addicts with minor opiate addictions and create advanced addiction by repeatedly administering methadone.
Methadone is more painful to detoxify from and feels like it’s settled in your bones and addicts rarely detoxify from it. Usually, detox only occurs when they are kicked off for positive urinalysis tests or not paying their methadone bill. In fact, methadone addicts turn to crime to pay their bill. The dose administered to the addict is regulated by self-reported symptoms. Methadone is easily abused. You do get high every dose, and to increase your high you could buy carryout doses, Visteril, Clonipin or other drugs from fellow clinic patients. The good aspect of being on methadone was it kept me from getting sick – but I was well enough to find other drugs. Other addicts would get well so they could sell drugs and make a profit.
The 12-step programs were designed to help addicts get clean and find a new way of life through complete abstinence. The methadone clinics don’t help addicts find a new way of life. The common way addicts withdraw from methadone is to shoot heroin. This is commonly referred to as “shooting yourself clean.” Methadone clinics are nothing better than bureaucratized drug dealers with the legal ability to go mobile. Switching from heroin to methadone is like changing seats on the Titanic.
Marysville
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