If someone you know is taking methadone for any reason – pain management or addiction treatment are the usual reasons – tell them they are playing Russian roulette with their lives. Pain can be managed with medications safer, and dependency is not solved with another drug addiction, drug rehabilitation, but – not unexpectedly kill, cure opiate withdrawal
, you.Deaths methadone overdose and interactions with other drugs are growing faster than any other prescription drugs, including Oxycontin, Vicodin and morphine, says the National Drug Intelligence Center (EICC) in a new report.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says methadone overdoses killed 3849 people in 2004, increased 390% over 1999. More recent data from state health services show the trend continues, with teenagers and young adults, ages 15-24 suffer the highest methadone overdose rates.The amount of methadone dispensed by physicians increased 715% from 2001 to 2006, the EICC report said. But the Food and Drug Administration issued a public health advisory of methadone in November 2006 after the trend alarming abuse and death became known.

The problem with methadone is that metabolizes slowly and can remain in the body for more than a day. Without careful dosing, methadone can build to toxic levels. Any interaction with another drug which also depresses the system can quickly lead to heart failure and respiratory and death.Tom Riley, spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said that prescription drugs have surpassed marijuana as the drug of choice for new users.

"The broader story is the abuse of prescription painkillers in America," said Riley. "The abuse and misuse of drugs is far more dangerous and far more widespread than most Americans realize." Methadone has been prescribed since 1940 as a painkiller. More recently, it began to be prescribed more often because of the problems associated with Oxycontin. Part of the popularity of methadone was that even the lower cost compared to other opioid analgesics such as Oxycontin which are also derived from opium.

Instead of a solution, but methadone is now the new problem, a drug killer as OxyContin.Widely used to relieve the withdrawal symptoms and block the desire for heroin addiction, methadone, often takes precedence over adequate drug rehabilitation programs . And apparently it is also more convenient for state and local governments, cure opiate withdrawal
, to distribute methadone, which provide drug rehab for heroin addicts correct.

Meanwhile, thousands of addicts are patrolling the streets looking, cure opiate withdrawal
, for heroin or other opiates, and the liquidation of illicit methadone if they can get what you're looking for. The majority is derived from illicit methadone addicts others, instead of having their addictions treated in drug, cure opiate withdrawal
, rehab, day to day living sometimes sell or exchange their methadone handouts.

The exact number of persons on methadone for the ' treatment 'of opiate dependence is unknown, but it is certainly in the tens of thousands – and all could be allowed to be free from drugs, if they have opted for the rehabilitation of drug addiction rather than a secondary education. Instead, hundreds of addicts dying from methadone overdoses and drug interactions. Many thousands more are receiving methadone prescriptions for the pain, risk of opioid dependence and the need for drug rehabilitation, if not a premature death.

The idea that methadone is a good idea because it takes away from heroin, cure opiate withdrawal
, addicts is so far away from rehab for drugs as it can get. Drug Rehab is just what the name says – rehabilitation – which is defined as "the treatment, therapy, healing, remedy, or cure." Keep anyone addicted to any drug can not be considered a remedy for the recovery or cure. Rehabilitation, by its very definition, means to get off drugs for good, and how to do this is through a real honest drug rehabilitation program.