An assessment is presented of a treatment program for narcotics dependency which involves the daily oral administration of methadone to act as a blocking agent by virtue of tolerance to all opiates. In every parameter, except holding a job, there was appreciable overall improvement from the time of admission to the methadone program, to its termination, and even in the most difficult parameter of abstinence approximately two-thirds of the patients were virtually abstinent and most of the rest had used heroin only intermittently or periodically. Only five out of thirty-two patients voluntarily stopped taking the methadone in spite of frequent though tolerable side effects.
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