It uses an herbal medicine developed by Professor Tran Khuong Dan, which does not produce painful withdrawal symptoms. The medicine is used in conjunction with a training program to support social rehabilitation. A study is now being conducted in Vietnam by the United Nations, Johns Hopkins Medical School, and the National Institute of Drug Abuse to evaluate the safety and efficacy of this regimen. The documentary includes amazing footage of a patient responding to initial treatment. The most expensive government drug program in the world is the America's Methadone Maintenance Program.
Free methadone is dispensed to wean addicts away from heroin.
While, at first, this seemed to provide an easy solution to both addiction and the criminal lifestyle accompanying it, over time it turned out not to be the hoped for panacea. The most serious problem of methadone maintenance is that people become more addicted to it than to heroin. Withdrawal symptoms are more severe than with other drugs. As one woman says, the methadone clinic became a government crack house. This film provides a historical overview of how the government policy became established and then entrenched.