Present-day methadone prescribing in England.

Abstract

The “United Kingdom Statistics of Drug Addiction and Criminal Offences Involving Drugs” (published by the Home Office) gives the following data as of 31st December 1969: of the total number of 1466 known drug addicts (namely, addicts to hard drugs), 499 were taking heroin, and more than double that number, namely 1011, were taking methadone (either alone or with other drugs). A footnote explains that “as a result of a deliberate policy adopted by Hospital Clinics in the treatment of heroin addiction, of weaning patients from heroin on to methadone, methadone has supplanted heroin as the drug most commonly used by addicts.” What is meant by the phrase “most commonly used by addicts” is probably, “most commonly prescribed to addicts,” as, of course, the number of abusers or addicts buying “Chinese heroin” or English heroin or methadone on the black market is unknown. There is, in fact, a certain amount of black market dealing in these and other drugs going on.