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 Health & Beauty | June 2006 
Treatment for Heroin Addicts Now a Lethal Pain Medication?
 Fiore Mastroianni - ABC News
| | The manufacturers of methadone, including the American company Tyco, have seen their profits skyrocket as its approved use has spread beyond heroin addicts. |
A prescription drug used to treat heroin addicts has become an increasingly popular and effective pain medication. But there's a problem.
Methadone, well-known to heroin addicts, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, as a pain medication.
The catch is that it's much more potent than almost any other pain medication. Now many doctors are concerned the powerful drug is being over prescribed and is proving too strong for people not used to it.
In the last four years methadone-related deaths increased three-fold to nearly 2,500, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
"Common sense would dictate that there may be more of a problem with how the drug is used than the drug itself," said Dr. Michael Ferrante of the Pain Management Center at UCLA Medical Center.
The manufacturers of methadone, including the American company Tyco, have seen their profits skyrocket as its approved use has spread beyond heroin addicts. |
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