COUPLE'S STORY TESTAMENT TO THE EFFECTIVENESS OF METHADONE TREATMENT

Regarding "A tale of heroin to methadone and back again" published March
31: The experience of the McDonalds is dramatic testimony to the
effectiveness of methadone treatment for opioid dependence, and the
imperative need to provide it to all who want and need this medication.
Thus, you report on how methadone led to "their success in beating their
heroin habit ... and helped bring them close together with their two young
children." And, indeed, you state that for more than five years they were
clean. And then what? They moved to a region of the state that had (and
still has) no access to methadone treatment, and ultimately they relapsed.

Even without being juxtaposed to this impressive tale of methadone
maintenance success, it is perplexing to see the Edwardsville Police Chief
dismiss the medication, methadone. Does the Chief also make public
pronouncements over the relative merits of cardiac catheterization versus
open-heart surgery? Or regarding which of the many insulin preparations are
acceptable, and which are not?

Whatever might have contributed to his dismissive attitude toward
methadone, surely the case of the McDonalds should cause him to reconsider.

The police chief, and the entire community, would do well to consider the
words of the person most affected, Mr. McDonald: "They need (methadone
treatment) up here." And until this need is met, not only drug users but
the entire population will pay the price.

Robert Newman, MD,

Director, Baron Edmond de rothschild Chemical Dependency Institute,

Beth Israel Medical Center, NYC