Methadone, Dole found, was the only opiate whose addicts did not demand increasing doses every few hours. Instead, they were happy with the same dose once a day, which could carry them through the next twenty-four hours. Methadone addicts could actually discuss topics unrelated to dope. This was not true of heroin addicts, whom Dole found tediously single-minded in their focus on the drug. Dole believed addicts could be maintained on methadone indefinitely, and that with one dose a day they could function as normal human beings. In 1970 in New York City, he opened the first methadone clinic
...more
