 My name is Deborah Shrira.
I am the Creator of Medical
Assisted Treatment. I have
always hated injustice and I seen it as a way to fight the
stigma and discrimination
attached to Methadone -
Maintenance -Treatment.
I seen as a way we could use it - to get our voices
heard - and our beliefs out
to the public. Maybe others
would have the chance to hear about Methadone -
Maintenance - Treatment
before we did. It is now more important than ever
we educate people about
methadone. - There are more - and - more people
unaware of the potential it has to kill them if mixed with other medications like
alcohol,benzodiazepines,or
even other opiates. -They shall know the truth and the truth set them free...
We can have justice whenever those who have not been injured by injustice are as outraged by it as those who have been. -Solon 594 B.C.
Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. Thomas Edison
Hello, Everyone!!! Can you believe another year has passed? It seems to go much faster since we are older. We are still with you. I don't know how we manage. It has been a superb year!!! It has been a pleasure meeting all of you and to have the ability to help. I have a gift to give all of you taking methadone. Please check it out in the form of a News Release... Pass the word to those who haven't heard
Overdoses of methadone -- used as a replacement drug for opiate addicts but also an increasingly popular painkiller -- can lead to heart and breathing problems and death, the Food and Drug Administration,says in a new warning.
The Associated Press reported November 27 that the warning notes that methadone can
cause slow or shallow breathing and potentially deadly changes in users' heart rate. Dangerous side effects and deaths have been reported among people who use the drug as a painkiller.
Part of the problem, the FDA said, is that while methadone is effective as a painkiller for 4-8 hours, the drug can stay in the body for up to 59 hours. Patients who take subsequent doses to relieve pain can unwittingly build up toxic levels of the drug in their bodies.The FDA urged doctors to be cautious about prescribing the drug and monitor patients closely, giving strong warnings to users against taking more of the drug than prescribed.
Doctors wrote more than 2 million prescriptions for methadone as a painkiller in 2003, and use of the drug is still rising. An estimated 2,452 overdose deaths were attributed to methadone in 2003, up from 623 in 1999.
Reference: Associated Press Dated:28 November 2006
 Contrary to published reports, the investigation into the death of of Anna Nicole's son is far from over.
Anna Nicole Smith
Law enforcement sources tell TMZ that the attorney General of the Bahamas ordered police to re-interview Howard K. Stern regarding the painkiller methadone and how it ended up int late Daniel Wayne Smith's system.
Daniel died September 10 in his Mother's room, just days after she gave birth to a baby
girl. An autopsy revealed Daniel had a lethal combination of drugs in his system, including several antidepressants.
Sources in the Bahamas tell TMZ that Royal Bahamas Police interviewed Stern two weeks ago. It's not the first time Stern has ben interviewed. Law enforcement sours
say Stern and Anna Nicole were both interviewed after Daniel's death.
We are told that law enforcement officials will make a major announcement about the investigation by December 15.
Reference: http://www.TMZ.com Date: 26 November 2006
In 2005, more than 4 million adults ages 18 to 24 reported using prescription pain relievers nonmedically in the past year, according to data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
More than one-half (53%) of these young adults obtained the pain relievers free-of-charge from a friend or relative.
The other most commonly mentioned methods were obtaining them from prescriptions from one doctor (13%) and buying them from a friend or relative (11%).
Users who also met the criteria for prescription pain reliever abuse or depend-ence less likely to report obtaining the drugs free from a friend or relative (38%) but were more likely to report buying the drug either from a friend or relative (20%) or a drug dealer (13%).
This report is available online.For details, including data charts, source information and caveats, download the PDF file at www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/cesarfax/vol15/15-47.pdf.
Reprinted from CESAR Fax, a weekly, one-page overview of timely substance abuse trends or issues, from The Center on Substance Abuse Research (CESAR) at the University of Maryland.
A number of states have either created online public registries of methampheta-mine offenders or are considering doing so, MSNBC reported December 6.
Officials in states like Tennessee and Montana, where registries are already in place, say the public has a right to know if convicted drug offenders are living in their neighborhood.
" It lets the community know that there's someone like this in their community, because the likelihood of them going back and doing it again is high," said Georgia State Republican, Mike Coan, who has proposed a meth-offender registry in his state. "It's no different, really, from the sex offender (registry). If there's one living near me, I want to know it."
Tennessee is one of four states with an online meth-offender registry, starting the first in the United States in 2005; it now includes the name of 400 offenders.
Similar bills have been introduced in Oklahoma, Washington, Kentucky and West Virginia.
Illinois and Minnesota are in the process of implementing meth-offender registries.
The registries are seen as a public-safety weapon against meth-lab operators who open clandestine labs full of potentially lethal chemicals. But critics see the lists as counterproductive.
" The problem with these registries is that we're creating a class of untouchables within our society who cannot rent apartments or secure employment," said Mr. Jonathan Turley of George Washington University.
"When you diminish the likelihood that ex-felons can live and work in society, you increase the chances that they will return to criminal behavior."
The proposed Georgia law would require methamphetamine offenders to be listed on the registry for seven years; the registry would include the offender's photo and address.
A proposed federal law, introduced by Republican Steve Pearce, would go even further, calling for a national registry listing anyone convicted of manufacturing, distributing or dispensing any illegal drug.
Pearce's registry, endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police, would include drug offenders' current addresses and license plate numbers; the information could remain online permanently.
Reference: MSNBC Date: 7 December 2006
After alcohol and marijuana, the prescription stimulants Adderall® and Ritalin® are perceived to be the most easily available drugs misused at a large public mid-Atlantic university, according to a qualitative survey of a consistent panel of undergraduate students.
Nearly all high risk and low risk student reporters (SRs) surveyed thought that Adderall was easy to obtain and more than two-thirds of each thought that Ritalin was easy to obtain.
Respondents believed that students use prescription stimulants non-medically instead of coffee or energy drinks because prescription stimulants are "more effective, last longer, [and have] less calories.".
According to the authors, these results suggest "that the perceptions of wide-spread availability and use of prescription drugs on campus found in our earlier surveys of high risk SRs are probably applicable to a wider student population."
For details, including data charts, source information and caveats, download the PDF file at www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/cesarfax/vol15/15-43.pdf.
Our current drug crisis is a tragedy born of a phony system of classification. For reasons that are little more than accidents of history,
We have divided a group of nonfood substances into two categories: items
purchasable for supposed pleasure (such as alcohol),
and illicit drugs.The categories were once reversed. Opiates were legal in America before the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914,
and members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, who campaigned
against alcohol during the day, drank their valued,
"women's tonics" at night, products laced with laudanum (tincture of opium).
I could abide---though I would still oppose---our current intransigence if we applied the principle of total interdiction to all harmful drugs,
But how can we possibly defend our current policy based on a dichotomy that
encourages us to view one class of substances
as a preeminent scourge while the two most dangerous and life-destroying substances by far, alcohol and tobacco, form a second class
advertised in neon on every street corner of urban America? And why, moreover, should heroin be viewed with horror while
chemical cognates that are no different from heroin than lemonade is from iced tea perform work of enormous compassion
by relieving the pain of terminal cancer patients in their last days?
---Stephen J. Gould, evolutionary biologist, Taxonomy as Politics, Dissent, Winter 1990 p73
What can I say to you but it is my favorite time of the year!!! I love the season!!! My husband used to tell me I was in love with love. It just seems to be more of it in the air between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I love all of it! I want to thank all of you for visiting with me during the year. It is our pleasure to serve you in any we can. We need to hear from you. How are we doing? We are trying to educate
you concerning Addiction. Have we missed any information you would like to know more about? If you will just drop us a line, tell us what you would like to read about, then we can provide it for you.
In a well-designed randomized clinical trial, Norwegian researchers compared buprenorphine and methadone maintenance therapies for opioid addiction. The following is excerpted from commentary on an English translation of the study report by Dr. Andrew Byrne MB, BS, Redfern, New South Wales, Australia.
There were 50 long-term (>10 years) opioid dependent subjects randomized to receive either 16 mg fixed-dose buprenorphine or variable-dose methadone (mean daily dose 106 mg, range 80-160 mg) during 6 months of observation. Patient retention rate was 85% in the methadone group and 36% for those prescribed buprenorphine.
Illicit opioid-positive urine tests were slightly lower in the methadone group (20% vs. 24%). Importantly, the methadone subjects reported less high risk behavior.
The fixed dose buprenorphine dosing schedule here was probably based on a successful Swedish model, but after 2 months patients were automatically switched to double doses every-other-day. This may have caused some of the excess drop-outs. Also, fixed dose schedules are unlikely to be as effective as flexible ones.
Methadone and buprenorphine should both be prescribed in tailored doses according to clinical need, using appropriate increments (5 mg/d for methadone 0.4 mg/d for buprenorphine). It is likely that some buprenorphine patients in this trial dropped out because they received too little or too much of the drug (32 mg is the maximum recommended dose).
There is no longer any doubt that both methadone and buprenorphine are effective for substantial numbers of heroin-addicted subjects treated with adequately supervised (and flexible) doses along with psychosocial supports. However, from a body of research, including numerous clinical trials, we know that, when compared to buprenorphine, methadone:
(1) generally suits a higher proportion of the total,
(2) reduces the use of other opiates to a greater degree, and
(3) while in treatment, such patients are less likely to be involved in high risk behaviors.
Methadone is also considered to be safe in pregnancy and is much cheaper
and easier to administer. Thus methadone should probably still be our preferred first option and buprenorphine kept in reserve for particular indications. If there are concerns about patients misusing methadone, take-away doses should be limited until stability has been demonstrated.
It may be that long-term methadone patients are less likely to fare well on buprenorphine, as shown in this study.
It is unfortunate that decisions for physicians and especially for patients are frequently dictated not by clinical considerations as much as by regulatory constraints. In some countries (and for no logical reason) these [constraints] are far more onerous and odious for methadone.
Dr. Byrne concludes: My feeling is that buprenorphine should be available as an option to all patients who report problems taking methadone. Such patients, however, should be carefully monitored since a high proportion relapse (in this study, 74% within 6 months) and may need to transfer back to methadone or to consider other alternatives such as detoxification.
These authors are not the first to use the term ‘gold standard’ for methadone maintenance treatment.
Reference: Kristensen O, Espegren O, Asland R, Jakobsen E, Lie O, Seiler S. A randomised clinical trial of methadone vs. buprenorphine to opioid dependants. Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen. 2005;125(2):148-151.
Patients coming into emergency departments who use methadone frequently also use tricyclic antidepressants and/or benzodiazepines,which is a potentially dangerous drug combination.
The authors of this study hypothesized that the presence of methadone and a tricyclic antidepressant or benzodiazepine or both is associated with an “accidental” overdose death, more often than a death from any other cause.
A retrospective chart review was conducted of New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner data for 2003. Decedents who tested positive for methadone and also were classified as an "accidental" overdose death, as determined by the medical examiner, were compared with deaths from all other causes for the presence of a tricycyclic antidepressant, a benzodiazepine, or both.
The investigators found that, in 2003, there were 5,817 medical examiner cases, of which 500 (8.6%) were methadone positive.
Of those methadone-positive cases, 493 were available for analysis:
a. 95 (19%) also were tricyclic antidepressant positive
b. 158 (32%) also were benzodiazepine positive.
Stated another way in the study, those having a methadone-related "accidental" overdose death were approximately 2 times more likely to also have a tricyclic antidepressant involved, 1.7 times more likely to have benzodiazepines present and greater than 4 times more likely to have both tricyclic antidepressant and benzodiazepine involved.
Other drugs also commonly associated with a methadone-associate"accidental" overdose deaths included: cocaine, morphine, or additional opioids.The authors concluded that testing positive for a tricyclic antidepressant, a benzodiazepine, or both was frequently associated with a methadone-positive "accidental" over-dose death.
Reference: Chan GM, Stajic M, Marker EK, Hoffman RS, Nelson LS. Testing Positive for Methadone and Either a Tricyclic Antidepressant or a Benzodiazepine Is Associated with an Accidental Overdose Death: Analysis of Medical Examiner Data. Acad Emerg Med. 2006[Mar 28; Epub ahead of print].
Studies have indicated that most opioid agonist-using patients are not able to successfully complete tapering attempts.
Little is known, however, about tapering within a treatment environment that is supportive of indefinite agonist treatment and medication tapering.
In this study, all records of patients beginning a slow methadone taper were reviewed (n = 30). No patient successfully completed methadone tapering.
Four patients (13.3%) successfully switched to buprenorphine/naloxone, one of whom tapered off buprenorphine/naloxone.
Three patients (10%) were continuing their taper at the study’s end. One patient transferred to another program, one was administratively discharged, and one had his taper stopped for mishandling doses.
The remaining patients (n = 20, 66.7%) stopped their tapers for the following reasons: 1. feeling unstable/withdrawal symptoms (n = 4),
2. drug use/positive urinalysis results (n = 12),
3. psychiatric instability (n = 3),
4. and pain management (n = 1).
Only one patient prematurely left treatment secondary to a failed taper
attempt.
The authors conclude that patients attempting methadone tapers should be informed about the difficulty involved and be monitored closely for signs of instability. For a few patients, a taper to a lower methadone dose and a switch to buprenorphine/naloxone are obtainable.
See: Calsyn DA, Malcy JA, Saxon AJ. Slow tapering from methadone maintenance in a program encouraging indefinite maintenance. J Subst Abuse Treat. 2006;30 (2):159-163
What Causes Withdrawal?
Withdrawal (seen most often when the use of depressant drugs such as opioids, benzodiazepines, alcohol, nicotine is stopped) is a rebound hyperexcitability.
When such drugs are used in high amounts over a long period of time the body's
functions are depressed (made less active), and the body adapts to the presence of the drug overtime.
When the person stops using the drug, the body attempts to normalize itself and mechanisms kick in to restore the normal state. This "normalization" process
pushes bodily systems to become more active, and is so doing causes a state of hyperexcitability until normal function is restored.
http://www.utexas.edu
In the event you decide to use Suboxone/Subutex Sublingual Treatment (Buprenorphine) for maintenance or taper when you get low enough on your tapering dose to lateral over to that program we would still like to help you with
your transfer and continue our relationship as stated before. For a list of Doctors who provide Suboxone/Subutex Treatment:
Click Here Buprenorphine Physcian Locator
The National Alliance of Advocates for Buprenorphine Treatment has launched its National Patient/Physician Matching System to connect those addicted to opioids
with Doctors able to provide medical treatment with buprenorphine in the privacy
of their office. For more information, or to register, please visit the link below:
Click Here Patient/Physician Locator
(Note: Some clinics will provide buprenorphine maintenance and taper in house. This may be far more strict than if provided through an outside physician. Some
clinic physicians may do Buprenorphine on the side.
Buprenorphine as an option for tapering after reaching 30mg per day may work well for you. Changes in the suggested cross-over amount may be revised after
studies are completed in the near future. The option to maintain on Buprenor-phine is available and could be an important consideration. The rules and regu-
lations for Buprenorphine are far more lenient than those for methadone at this time. Monitoring the liver is indicated for those with Hepatitis C.
Reference: George Clark ARM SE CT Volunteer Advocate
Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be and wherever He may be, the man who thinks, becomes a light and a power.
----Henry George 1839-1897
Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Compiled by: Deborah Shrira, RPH,CMA Dated: 23 November 2006
THE DIRECTOR'S VIEW
Hello! I want to thank all of you for visiting our website and in helping make it
the great success we had hoped for. We are open twenty-four hours for you and
a lot of you do take advantage of it. We have a list usually of people requesting
we call because they can't afford to make a long-distance call.
We want all of you to continue but I want to apologize because we receive a
lot of mail from you and I made all of you a promise when I opened "Medical Assisted Treatment of America" you would not have to wait more than twenty
four to forty-eight hours for an answer. - - I know some of you have waited
much longer and I want you to know I am truly sorry for there should be no
reason any of you should have to wait more than forty-eight hours at the most.
I want you to know I am in the midst of making preparations to solve your
waiting time. I would like to explain, if I may, it wasn't intentional. We had
people workingwith us getting sick, taking vacations and dealing with other personal problems as they arose. Some of us had problems with our computers and I know we all hate it when it happens.
We did make some changes in our long-term goals and we have hired some
more employees. It will take some time to train them and soon we will be back
to normal again. I just ask you bear with us as we make the transition for most
of us, like myself, have never worked on a computer in the capacity we are
operating now.
I want to thank all of you for your patience and as we make changes in the future there still may be some waiting time but I am going to share some secrets with
you on how to obtain a quick answer if you need one. If you sent any mail to
us and we missed it, please send it again. It is possible we did miss some but
if you will send it again to us we will do our best to make sure it is answered.
I know you don't want to listen to me even though we included "The Director's View" for me to share with you how I felt. I like to receive feedback from you when I share. I want to start off tonight sharing with you about all the progress they are making in Addiction Research. I think it is very exciting!!!
Thank you for your time. Deborah Shrira RPH, CMA
!7 September 2006
- - Molecular imaging using positron emission tomography (PET) continues to provide new knowledge about how brain circuits are altered by addictive drugs. Chemist Joanna Fowler, Director of the Center for Translational Neuroimaging at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and a pioneer
in the development of radioactively "tagged" molecules used with PET, gave a
talk on these radiotracers at the 232nd National Meeting of the American
Chemical Society in San Francisco, California, on September 14, 2006, at the Moscone Convention Center.
"Addiction is a brain disease that is devastating for families and society," said Fowler. "Chemistry -- through the development of radiotracers that can monitor the distribution and kinetics of drugs and receptors in the brain -- is at the core
of understanding the addictive process and finding new ways to help people overcome it."
The Brookhaven group, led by Fowler, has developed radiotracers to track the movement of various addictive drugs including cocaine, nicotine, and metham-phetamine, and also to measure the levels of certain "chemical messengers," or neurotransmitters, and their receptors in the brain.
Positron Emission Studies using these radiotracers have revealed, for example, that all addictive drugs elevate levels of a neurotransmitter called dopamine, a chemical that helps us experience feelings of pleasure, reward, and motivation
and also plays a role in physical movement. Through the process of addiction, these studies show, the brain's ability to respond to pleasure signals becomes depleted as receptors for dopamine are lost.
The research has also indicated that initial differences in people's dopamine systems may help explain why some people find drugs pleasurable and
become addicted while others do not.
One of the challenges for the researchers has been developing extremely rapid methods for synthesizing the radiotracer compounds. The radioactive elements (isotopes) most commonly used, carbon-11 (11C) and fluorine-18 (18F), have very short half-lives (20 and 110 minutes, respectively). The half-life is the time it takes for half of the radioactive atoms in the sample to decay to a non-radioactive form.
Since the PET scanner depends on the radioactive signal to detect the substance in the body, the compounds must be made and injected quickly to generate useful data.
"We are currently developing new ways to label complex molecules with carbon-11 and fluorine-18 to gain a better understanding of how different drugs of abuse disrupt brain function and how we may be able to treat addiction," said Fowler. "This is an area that benefits enormously from creative synthetic chemistry. It is also an area that desperately needs new talent to develop the scientific tools needed to solve this major public health problem."
Fowler is no stranger to radiotracer chemistry. In 1976, she and her colleagues synthesized 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), the first radiotracer to measure brain glucose metabolism. As a stand-in for glucose, the body's main chemical fuel, FDG can help scientists monitor metabolic activity throughout the body and brain. Today, FDG is widely used in PET centers around the world to study and diagnose neurological and psychiatric diseases and to diagnose lung and colon cancer.
Fowler also developed another radiotracer that first showed that cocaine's distribution in the human brain parallels its effects on behavior, and a series
of radiotracers to map monoamine oxidase, a brain enzyme that regulates the levels of other neurotransmitters.
Using these radiotracers, she discovered that smokers have reduced levels of monoamine oxidase in their brains, a finding that may account for some of the behavioral and epidemiological features of smoking,such as the high rate of smoking in individuals with depression and drug addiction.
Fowler earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Colorado and did her postdoctoral work at the University of East Anglia in England and at Brookhaven. She joined the staff of Brookhaven in 1971.
A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Fowler has won numerous other honors including: 1. American Chemical Society's 2002 Glen T. Seaborg Award for Nuclear and Radiochemistry;
2. 2000 Society of Nuclear Imaging in Drug Development's Alfred P. Wolf Award and;
3. 1998 Francis P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal
She has been published in more than 300 peer-reviewed articles in leading scientific journals and holds eight patents for radiolabeling procedures.
This research is supported by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research with the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science and the National Institutes of Health. Imaging techniques such as PET are a direct outgrowth of DOE's long-standing investment in basic physics and chemistry research. -Through work on accelerators designed to answer questions about the fundamental nature of matter and energy, pioneering DOE scientists understood and realized their potential to develop such tools for the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
The ongoing research using these tools to investigate drug addiction and other diseases is a prime example of how our national laboratories bring together the expertise of chemists, physicists, and medical professionals to address questions of profound significance for society.
Contact: Kay Cordtz
DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
Court TV News (TM) Exclusive: Four More Drugs Found As Cause of Death
For Anna Nicole's Son
Wednesday, November 1, 12:48pm ET
NEW YORK, November 1 /PRNewswire/ --- Today on Court TV News Headlines, Correspondent Michel Bryant exclusively reported that more drugs may have played a crucial part in the sudden death of Anna Nicole Smith's son, Daniel in September. According to Bahamian sources, four additional drugs were discover discovered in Daniel's body.
Court Television News have learned that toxicology reports now being reviewed by Bahamian law enforcement showed the drugs to be eight times the legal dose,how however, results have not yet been released. This discovery goes beyond what Dr. Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist,who was hired by Smith, first reported. Wecht's findings showed a cumulative effect of three central nervous system drugs, includ- ing antidepressants Zoloft and Lexapro, as well as Methadone.
Contact: Andie Silvers Scher 212-973-7532
silversa@courttv.com
Last Updated: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 | 9:23 AM ET CBC News
An Ottawa clinic nurse who first noticed a man had received a fatal methadone overdose during treatment told a coroner's inquest that she did not know of any procedure at the facility to deal with such a mistake.
Sandra Nault testified Monday into the death a year ago of 41-year-old Wade Hatt, who was sent home from the government-sanctioned clinic on Somerset Street after the accidental overdose. He later died.
 The five-member jury examining Hatt's
case to determine the safety of Ontario methadone clinics where more than
11,000 residents were treated in 2005 for addictions to opiate drugs such as heroin
or morphine.
Nault broke down several times while
trying to recount the events leading up to Hatt's death in October 2005.
Wade Hatt, 41, died of methadone while being treated at an Ottawa Clinic for painkiller addiction. A coroner's jury is ivestigating. (CBC)
Nault said she was one of two nurses at the clinic when Hatt arrived with his
girl-friend, Julie Maloney, at their normal time.
Nault recalled Hatt, a father of two, was friendly and respectful as usual.
Hatt, who worked as a delivery man, was fighting an addiction to painkillers,
and usually took only a 15-milligram dose of methadone, while Maloney's
normal dose was 150 mg.
Nault said she mixed each dose with a glass of orange drink, then set the
glasses down.
After Maloney and Hatt drank most of each glass, Nault realized the bottles
of methadone had been switched — Hatt had received almost 10 times his
normal dose.
Nault said she told Hatt to stop drinking.
She had been working at the clinic for a couple of months, but, she said,
she did not know of any procedure for dealing with an overdose.
Nault also said she couldn't remember whether she ever read an emergency manual.
Hatt was brought to the bathroom by another nurse, who tried to induce
vomiting, with limited success. He was then seen by the clinic doctor.
Wrong phone number in Hatt's file.
Meanwhile, Nault contacted an on-call doctor outside the clinic. Nault said
no one told her to send Hatt to the hospital.
Instead, Hatt was sent home.
Nault recalled that he smiled and gave her a high-five as he walked out of
the clinic.
The second nurse testified that after Hatt left, she was told to call him at home
to check on him.
The number in the file was wrong, and when she dialed it, she learned Hatt no longer lived there.
The next morning, she reached Maloney by phone, and learned Hatt died
during the night.
Earlier, the coroner's jury was told Hatt died of heart failure.
The inquest continues Tuesday.
What can I say to all of you? We must help educate our children. There are
too many deaths arising from methadone. It is not actually the methadone
always killing them but we must start an agressive campaign to save our
teenagers and young adults. We can start using "Medical Assisted Treatment of America" to voice our opinion on what we would like to see happen.
Yes, let's be careful at our Methadone Maintenance Treatment Facilities. We
must be careful always to check our doses because no one is above mistakes. Deaths have occurred but usually it is at the beginning while they are making adustments to your dose. If you have small children, infants even teenagers, please do not hesitate if you think they accidentally drank some of yours. Please keep it in your lock box with you at all times. Never set your dose around in the reach of children.
Compiled By: Deborah Shrira RPH,CMA Updated: 31 October 2006
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