More worms. I can approach this subject with ambivalence only as I hate methadone because it sucks in so many ways. Methadone maintenance is another ugly result of the primarily U.S. directed worldwide demonization and legal prohibition of recreational opium using, and I consider (for myself) opium to be the "crown jewel" of plant poisons. Beautiful opium, used freely for millenia was corrupted by the west. First by the isolation of morphine (one of medicines greatest advances in terms of its use as a medical analgesic). Then by the introduction of the hypodermic syringe to recreational morphine using. Profoundly more destructive than the introduction of the pipe to opium which Martin Booth claimed to be one of the most evil events in history. Actually this introduction resulted in the ultimate form of "harm reduction", the prevention of overdose. Then came the the acetilization of morphine to heroin. With the global criminalization of narcotics and of the denial of access to sterile injecting equipment our current system emerged, spreading ignorance, corruption, crime, poverty and disease. Opium use was suppressed and ultimately replaced with the filthy and dangerous street junk that today's addicts take for granted. Narcotic using, once a recreation or a vice of consenting adults has been corrupted, criminalized, pathologized and medicalized into something quite hideous.
Methadone fits well into this government directed social construct. And drug addiction is replaced with drug addiction.
From the standpoint of recreational use I consider opiates (both morphine and semisynthetic morphine and thebaine derivatives) to be the corruption of opium. I consider the inorganic chemically derived synthetic "opioids" to be the "perversion" of opium in this context. Methadone is a petroleum (coal tar) derivative.
Incidentally, I have read that the Bush family has major financial interests in both pharmaceutical coal tar and for profit prisons. The current system seems to serve them well.
If opium or heroin addiction could be likened to a fish with a hook through its lip then perhaps methadone addiction should be likened to a fish that swallowed the hook.
In the early 1960s humanist Drs. Dole and Nyswander founded the methadone maintenance program to rescue New York's addict population from the poverty, misery and early death concomitant with the criminalization of heroin. In the context of our current pernicious system, methadone is indeed a positve thing and I must agree it can save lives.
Drs. Dole and Nyswander recognized the severity of methadone addiction and stated that addicts should be readdicted to morphine should they decide to leave the methadone maintenace program as morphine is much easier to kick. Medically indicated but a politically incorrect statement these days.
I read that methadone has come to Nepal where opium and hashish using were once accepted. Now drugusers there are demonized and pathologized. I find the modern world ugly and depressing. Not that pathological drug addiction does not exist. It is abundant. But pathology and opiate addiction are not synonomous. In the case of opium using, addiction is merely a side effect of regular use. In Asian cultures where opium was legal and thus not a "forbidden fruit" this was common knowledge and opium was respected for the inherent weight it bore. Hence the social taboo against opium using by the young. Not a judgement against young people but a centuries old empirical knowledge that opium addiction does not mix well with youthful passion and energetic lack of restraint.
I consider "criminalization" and "pathologization" of narcotic addiction to be two sides of the same coin; oppression and oppression with a "human face". Today's addicts are thus offered only two roles to play by dominant culture, the "criminal" or the "sick" role. To demand dignity as a human being who freely chooses to use opiates and accept the side effect of addiction is to accept the criminal role and be punished accordingly should one be apprehended commiting this most heinous crime against bougeoise sensibility and/or authoritarian dictate.

Methadone helped me kick dope. That being said it does have terrible side effects physically as well as mentally. Idk maybe those side effects helped me want to quit. It seems ridiculous that people addicted to opiods can't just ween themselves under the same process with opiods. The year I spent taking methadone was a nightmare, worse than the 15 years I spent doing junk and I don't know how much it helped, I think, for the most part, I was just ready to quit.

"It seems ridiculous that people addicted to opiods can't just ween themselves under the same process with opiods."

I don't know much about opioids, but i've always wondered whether oral addministration of heroin wouldn't be better treatment than methadone. I bet it is. Also, crack and cocaine addicts might be better helped (eventhough cocaine is not physically addictive) with the psychological withdrawals by chewing coca leaves or drinking a medically measured dose of cocaine tea (rather than Wellbutrin, or whatever it is that is usually used for cocaine withdrawals. I have a friend who was given Wellbutrin by his doctor when he was trying to stop using crack). Or for that matter, maybe even go from crack back to coke, and then to cocaine tea (or however each person sees fit).

I'm no expert, so maybe this doesn't really make sense, but i bet it does.

it is highly addictive, it fucks up your liver and kidneys, and you have to take it for the rest of your life, or suffer severe health effects kicking it--effects that can last up to a year and can kill you. and who profits from it? why not just work with doctors on heroin maintenance and kicking that? helluva lot better than the done.