by Jennifer McNeely

About the author: Jennifer McNeely is a former senior research associate for the Lindesmith Center, a New York City policy research institute that focuses on drug policy and related issues. She is now a consultant to the center.

Methadone, a long-acting synthetic narcotic analgesic, was first used in the maintenance treatment of drug addiction in the mid-1960s, by Drs. Vincent Dole and Marie Nyswander of Rockefeller University. There are now 115,000 methadone maintenance patients in the U.S. Forty thousand of them are in New York State, and about half that many are in California. Methadone is widely employed throughout the world, and is the most effective known treatment for heroin addiction.

The Goal of Treatment

The goal of methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is to reduce illegal heroin use and the crime, death, disease...