Why methadone: isn't it worse than heroin?

A lot of people say that methadone is harder to give up than heroin - which makes it sound like heroin is easy to give up, which of course it isn’t. They also say that the withdrawals are worse coming off methadone than they are coming off heroin. But methadone detoxes are usually planned and involve a serious intention 2 of staying drug free for la long time - which is quite | different from going without smack for a few days I and taking ‘pills’ and/or alcohol to make it easier and this is probably why, for many, the withdrawals are worse.

Methadone is not ‘much more addictive’ than heroin: on one hand the withdrawals from methadone can be worse but on the other it doesn't give a high like that of heroin so people tend not to crave it as much as they crave for heroin.

Whichever way you look at it there isn’t much in it. Methadone is a very powerful drug which is hard to get off, but so is heroin. Prescribed methadone can provide a useful stage to get used to life without the buzz before becoming drug free, it also has the advantages of being:

Regular

Long acting

Free

Legal

Non-injectable

Accompanied by counselling and other forms of help

which means that for people who can't stop taking heroin it is often much the lesser of two evils and can be the basis on which you start to build a life away from heroin use.

Added to this there have been dozens of studies which have shown that people who were dependent on heroin and are prescribed methadone are able to:

Use less heroin

Inject less often and with less risk

Reduce the amount of crime they are involved in

Have more stable relationships.

Which means that while on a methadone script you have a chance to get things like debts, housing and relationships sorted out so that you will have fewer pressures to use when you do come off.

For many people becoming opiate free is a long way oH and as long as methadone is helping avoid the risks of illicit drug use it can be safely prescribed for many years.