This is the failure to understand that a person is addicted to an experience. If a cure for addiction fails to take into account a person's need for the addictive experience, he or she will simply be set loose to seek a comparable experience elsewhere. Simply stated, I am suggesting that when an individual's opiate habit is catered for in a way which causes minimal fuss, aggravation and cost that individual may be enabled to divert their energy and resources to the acquisition of alternative pleasurable stimulation. The feeling was prevalent that therapeutic contact was the price the client had to pay to obtain a prescription rather than a vehicle of behaviour change. The effectiveness of methadone maintenance has also proved a contentious issue.
Confusion arises, therefore, as to whether the tool itself is at fault or the modus operandi.
Drug treatment agencies often attach stipulations to prescribing agreements which might include proof of employment, stable accommodation, provision of urine specimens and cessation f illicit drug use. If behavioural control is the objective there is a good argument for reintroducing more favoured and short acting injectable reparations and considering the use of stimulants in maintenance programmes as well. There is a ubiquitous methodological inconsistency in embracing maintenance programmes while resisting the very strategies which would make this form of intervention more widely effective. However, if the drug worker is a therapist helping the individual out of the trap of dependence, the use of methadone attract or retain clients is collusive and ultimately sabotages the main task of treatment. Other reviews have found methadone withdrawal programmes less effective than -patient regimes and no more effective than the spontaneous remission rate.