While methadone remained on the fringes of medical respectability for decades, the Nixon administration sought it out as a way to control crime and respond to concerns over the fact that 20 percent of Vietnam veterans (at a rate of fourteen hundred soldiers per month) were returning home addicted to opium or morphine. Doctors weren’t trusted, though, to both dispense the drugs and control for their illicit diversion in an office setting, so highly regulated, stand-alone methadone clinics became the norm.
