Last week the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Director met with reporters and addiction-related professionals to hold a roundtable discussion on how to reduce the number of deaths associated with methadone.
It’s great that they’re publicly acknowledging that methadone kills, but they’re simply trying to save face here, not necessarily save lives. After all, the Federal Gov’t agencies still approve of pushing methadone on opiate addicts and handing it out happily to chronic pain patients, and over 200,000 Americans are still led to believe it’s safe. However, the more than 3,000 deaths per year now attributed to methadone, either by itself or in a drug combination, cannot be overlooked and should have sent up a huge red flag years ago when these numbers were doubling and tripling.
Honestly, what is it going to take for someone to have a bit of common sense? How about helping people recover from drug addiction instead of putting them on another deadly drug?
