Methadone

The chief of NIDA's Services Research Branch talks about drug abuse treatment within the criminal justice system, and assesses the challenges facing drug abuse treatment overall in the United States.

Despite the advances in treatment and prevention, roughly 50,000 new HIV infections still occur annually in the Nation. Research, in large part supported by NIDA, has produced a strategy to address this circumstance and break the epidemiological impasse: seek out HIV-infected individuals, particularly those in “hard-to-reach” groups that have minimal contact with the health care system; offer them HIV testing and treatment; and provide support to help them stay in treatment.

Methadone treatment centers are not foci for serious criminal activity, according to a study that used crime reports and global positioning data to compare crime rates at various distances around methadone centers, hospitals, convenience stores, and residential neighborhoods.

Reports on an analysis comparing three types of addiction treatment programs: methadone maintenance programs, long-term residential programs, and nonmethadone programs.

Summarizes a study on the use of incentives to encourage abstinence among methadone maintenance patients in outpatient programs.

Reports on a study to investigate the use of methadone maintenance for heroin addicts wait-listed for a treatment program to encourage their likelihood to enroll in the program.

Describes a study of unemployed methadone patients and the use of assertive outreach and motivational techniques to improve the patients’ employment outlook.

Reports prevalence rates of illicit drug abuse among youths and young adults based on 2007 data from a national survey of drug use and health.

Reports on an animal study showing that methadone, normally used as a therapy for opioid abuse, may prove to be an effective treatment for cocaine abuse.

Describes clinical trial results providing evidence that methadone maintenance to men in prison can pay off in better retention in community treatment and reduced drug abuse following their release.