XN000022-1973-03-04 — Page 2

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Sunday, March 4, 1973

While other countries, like Canada and the United States, already

had methadone maintenance programmes for heroin addicts, there was none in Hong Kong. The two pilot schemes then are being conducted to study if it

will prove useful or helpful in treating heroin addicts here.

Methadone is a synthetic drug discovered during the Second World

War. Its advantages over heroin are that it does not produce the euphoric

feeling experienced from heroin, blocks the craving for heroin and has a

longer lasting effect.

Also methadone use does not lead to tolerance so it is not necessary

to increase the dosage to maintain the same effect.

Steady Employment

A drug addict, after undergoing methadone treatment, will have

a chance, with social and rehabilitative counselling, to obtain steady

employment since he would not need to take heroin every four or five hours.

It follows from this that he can then readjust himself to live a normal life, having only to call once a day at any convenient time for his methadone.

There is also the possibility that once on methadone, a patient

may find he no longer needs to take a dosage daily and in this way, with

determination, may even give it up altogether in the long run.

Unlike some overseas programmes, participants in the Hong Kong programmes

are not given methadone to take home. They have to call daily at the

centre of treatment for their dosage. Urine screening is carried out to

see if they have reverted to heroin.

/After