U.S. TO MAKE METHADONE MORE AVAILABLE

NEW YORK (AP) -- The White House plans to expand the availability of
methadone treatment for drug addicts, The New York Times reported today.

The administration's top drug official, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, was to
announce an overhaul of policies geared toward combating heroin addiction
during a speech today to the American Methadone Treatment Association in
Manhattan.

New programs would for the first time allow doctors to give methadone to
addicts who visit their offices, the Times reported. Methadone, used by
115,000 Americans hooked on heroin and other opiates, currently is
administered at special clinics and only at certain times, making it
difficult for some addicts to receive treatment.

The expansion of methadone treatment comes at a time when New York Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani has questioned its effectiveness. He said the treatment
merely swaps one addiction for another, and has announced a controversial
plan aimed at getting methadone patients at city-run hospitals to wean
themselves from the drug.

The federal methadone regulations would be rewritten in December or
January. The cost of the new program was not available.

States have maintained wide control over the availability of methadone.
Eight states -- New Hampshire, Vermont, West Virginia, Mississippi, North
Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Idaho -- do not permit methadone clinics,
forcing addicts who need it to travel to other states.

A recent study by the National Academy of Sciences called methadone, a
synthetic substance used to curb the craving for heroine, ``more likely to
work than any other therapy.''

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