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Posted by: Az R on 2008-10-28, 21:24:38
Cold turkey withdrawal from opiates is miserable, but deaths are essentially unheard of. Very, very rare. In fact there's really only one drug that can kill you readily from withdrawal - alcohol. Methadone is used because getting people off heroin is damned near impossible. It's a 'harm avoidance' strategy. Instead of illegal, often contaminated street drugs administered by injection (which is why heroin addicts always die before 40), it's a pill. And one that's rather hard to OD on, and lasts -forever- in the body. Buprenorphine is popular too, because unlike other opiates, it's impossible to OD on (buprenorphine blocks its own effect at high dosages). It's extremely controversial in the medical field - because it's actually harder to get people off methadone than heroin. |
