Fwd: [SSRI-Research] Methadone -- once thought safe -- killing more than heroin in Denmark

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JustSayNo

Sat, 03 Jan 2004 00:35:13 -0500

[sSRI-Research] Methadone -- once thought safe -- killing more than

heroin in

Denmark

 

-- same old story.... sales sales sales...

 

Methadone -- once thought safe -- killing more than heroin in Denmark

 

http://story.news./news?tmpl==story & ncid=17 & e==3 & u==/afp/20031231/hl

_afp/denmark_drugs & sid=–001006

 

Wed Dec 31,11:05 AM ET

 

 

COPENHAGEN (AFP) - Methadone, once seen as the safe drug to help addicts

kick the habit, is killing more people in Denmark today than heroin itself,

according to a survey by forensic pathologists.

 

 

Poisoning by methadone, a synthetic narcotic, was blamed for the deaths of

47 people in 2002 against 36 who died from heroin overdoses, according to

the survey published Wednesday in Nordisk Rettsmedisin, a Scandanavian legal

medicine review.

 

The drug, popularized some three decades ago, is prescribed by doctors as a

controlled substitute for heroin users in detox programs. But its resale

value on the illegal circuit has soared, with addicts buying from other

addicts in what has caused a worrisome increase in methadone accidents, the

forensic pathologists said.

 

Researchers Sys Stybe Johansen and Anni Steetoft of the legal medicine

institute in Copenhagen fond that overall deaths blamed on heroin and

morphine had decreased by 33 percent since 1996 while those blamed on

methadone had increased in the same proportion.

 

The latest police statistics by Denmark's national police meanwhile saw a

slight drop last year in deaths from drug overdoses of any kind, at 252

against 258 in 2001 -- all but 36 men -- and 140 in 1987.

 

Denmark, which has some 14,000 drug addicts according to official estimates,

most living in the capital region, has one of Europe's highest death rates

due to drug consumption.