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More Methadone Deaths Seen Nationally
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 GOING-OVER
UK site that helps Overdose Victims
http://goingover.org.uk
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In Portland, Maine, and other communities nationally, officials are seeing
an increase in deaths attributed to overdose of the anti-opiate medication
methadone.
So far this year, nine Portland residents have died from suspected
methadone overdoses, on top of 16 such deaths in 2001. Officials in
Florida and Virginia have seen similar trends: in Florida, 179 people died
from methadone overdoses last year -- an 80 percent increase -- compared
to 271 heroin deaths and 390 cocaine deaths.
"There's been a major movement toward abuse of prescription drugs, and
methadone is seen as a painkiller just like oxycodone (OxyContin) is seen
as a painkiller," said James McDonough, director of the Florida Office of
Drug Control.
Rural areas, where prescription drugs are more readily available than
heroin or cocaine, have been hit especially hard. In Virginia, "We saw a
sudden increase in OxyContin in 1998, 1999, and 2000," said assistant
chief medical examiner William Massello. "That's when we got this
tremendous surge. Then right after it, methadone started picking up. Right
now we're anticipating we'll see more methadone than OxyContin,
significantly more."
According to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, methadone incidents reported
by emergency rooms nationally increased 37 percent between 2000 and 2001.
The trend has led to calls for methadone clinics to stop giving patients
doses of the drug for future use in order to prevent diversion. But in
Virginia, experts say the methadone is being illegally diverted from
doctors prescribing the drug for pain, not from addiction clinics. Many of
these doctors started prescribing methadone instead of OxyContin because
of the latter drug's potential for abuse.
Both law-enforcement and addiction experts in Portland expressed support
for methadone treatment despite the overdoses, saying the clinics cut crime significantly and help many people overcome their addictions.
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