Methadone: A Synthetic Opioid

Methadone: A Synthetic OpioidBy: Ishmail ColemanMedical AnthropologyDr. Gezon

Introduction: What is MethadoneMethadone is a synthetic opioid that is used medically as both a painkiller and an anti-addictive drug used by patients to relieve opioid addiction, specifically heroin (Chen, et al., 2014). the chemical composition of the synthetic opiates are modified to be stronger than its natural opiate form within certain chemical aspects in order to bring forth a specific effect on the user. This in turn may cause serious addiction.

Methadone is a profitable synthetic opiate that is utilized by the governments of America and countries abroad within medical and healthcare practices in order to stop heroin addiction, as well as provide other medical uses, such as pain relief; however, due to being a synthetic opiate, methadone also has adverse effects to the user, in which the user may become addicted or dependent on the drugThe distribution of methadone within the United States within the medical system and health care practices has created a multi-million dollar industry that is backed by research and non-profit organizations and has created an abundance of economic, political, and social issues amongst people within the United States and abroad (Hansen and Skinner, 2012).

Methadone Clinical BeginningsMethadone first arrived to the United States Post World War II as a means to cure heroin addiction (Bourgois, 2000: 169). After the 1914 Harrison Act, methadone researchers at Rockefeller University began conducting extensive research on methadone and studied the drug by doing clinical trials on heroin addicts in the African American neighborhood of Harlem in New York City (Hansen and Skinner, 2012: 170).

After the reports came back that Methadone causes low rates of crime amongst patients, and causes employment rates to go up, President Richard Nixon opened methadone programs across the country to aid War on Drug Campaign in order combat heroin addiction.However, this caused discrimination and bad social stigma toward Blacks, and Latinos who inhabited urban areas where these methadone clinics were present and also create a prevalence of methadone within these areas.

Although the methadone patients who were addicted to heroin gain a sense of fulfillment for shaking one habit, the strict rules and regulations of the methadone programs bring frustration to the patient due to the constant, strict monitoring of behavior (Bennett, 2011: 149). The continuation of methadone programs and administration has caused a constant rise of death amongst patients who use methadone and gained an addiction, in which deaths increased from 784 in 1999 to 4,418 to 2011, attributing to 26 percent of all opioid related deaths in 2011 (Chen, et al., 2014).

ConclusionMethadone, a synthetic opiate derivative used to treat heroin can actually become more detrimental than heroin by means of side effects, and social effects. Although methadone programs have shown success by means of some people recovering, for some it has turned them into functional drug addicts that still contribute to the economy of the United States. Since its emergence with the United States, methadone has become a profitable global drug commodity, which allows the market economy to flourish, but in turn may potentially bread more drug addicts. Works Cited and ReferencesBennett, Cary2011Methadone Maintenance Treatment: Disciplining the Addict. Health and History 13(2): 130- 157.

Bourgois, Philippe2000Disciplining Addictions: The Bio politics of Methadone and Heroin in the United States. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 24(2): 165-95.

Chen, Li Hui, Holly Hedegaard, Margaret Warner2014Drug Poisoning Deaths Involving Opioid Analgesics: United States, 1999-2011. NCHS Data Brief 166: 1-8.

Hansen, Helena and Mary E. Skinner2012From White Bullets to Black Markets and Greened Medicine: The Neuroeconomics and Neuroracial Politics of Opioid Pharmaceuticals. Annals of Anthropological Practice 36(1): 167-182.

Singer, Merrill2008Chapter 2: Global Drug Capitalism IN Drugs and Development. Waveland Press. Pp. 19-36.