Methadone, a contested substance: Danish methadone policy in the 1970s

Abstract

BackgroundDuring the 1970s in Denmark, there was a great deal of controversy about the role of methadone in Danish drug policy. At stake were not just epistemological issues about how to explain drug problems or indeed technical issues about the best possible treatment for such problems, but also social issues about how drug problems and drug treatment affected and were affected by social change. The paper uses an analytical framework in which drugs are co-constructed with their social worlds. It uses this framework to investigate how conflicts emerged about the different ways of conceiving of the relationship between methadone and Danish society. MethodsDocumentary data from the archives of a pressure group of parents of children with drug problems, the archives of an addiction doctor, newspaper articles, and policy documents from that time were coded in order to identify and analyze central controversies. ResultsThe methadone controversy of the 1970s was not just about the best treatment methods, but also a matter of the future of the Danish welfare state. The nation debated whether it should medicalise a social problem or solve it through social reform. ConclusionDrug treatment is not just a technical issue, but also a political issue and this needs to be accounted for when making drug policy.