The Crisis in Methadone Maintenance

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Abstract
IN the United States, during most of this century, maintaining a patient on an addictive drug as a form of medical treatment has created painful moral problems for professionals and public alike. The view is widely held that drug-substitution therapy is morally wrong and therefore unacceptable, in spite of the fact that such therapy often leads to the social rehabilitation of addicts and that attempts at complete cure via abstinence have had very little success.1 In June, 1963, the American Medical Association, in a joint statement with the National Research Council, reaffirmed the view that the complete withdrawal of narcotic . . .