Methadone
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Methadone (also known as Symoron, Dolophine, Amidone, Methadose, Physeptone, Heptadon and many other names) is a synthetic opioid. It is used medically as an analgesic and a maintenance anti-addictive and reductive preparation for use by patients with opioid dependency. It was developed in Germany in 1937, mainly because Germany required a reliable internal source of opiates. Because it is an acyclic analog of morphine or heroin, methadone acts on the same opioid receptors as these drugs, and thus has many of the same effects. Methadone is also used in managing severe chronic pain, owing to its long duration of action, extremely powerful effects, and very low cost. Methadone was introduced into the United States in 1947 by Eli Lilly and Company.
Methadone is mainly used in the treatment of opioid dependence. It has cross-tolerance with other opioids including heroin and morphine, offering very similar effects and a longer duration of effect. Oral doses of methadone can stabilise patients by mitigating opioid withdrawal syndrome. Higher doses of methadone can block the euphoric effects of heroin, morphine, and similar drugs. As a result, properly dosed methadone patients can reduce or stop altogether their use of these substances.
Methadone is approved for different indications in different countries. Common is approval as an analgesic and approval for the treatment of opioid dependence. It is not intended to reduce the use of non-opioid drugs such as methamphetamine, or alcohol.
A number of pharmaceutical companies produce and distribute methadone. The racemic hydrochloride is the only form available in most countries, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, France and in the United States, as of March 2008. The dextrorotary enantiomer of methadone, dextromethadone, is an NMDA antagonist rather than an opiate agonist. Therefore, methadone medications used for opiate addiction sometimes only contain levomethadone, the levorotary enantiomer. Levomethadone is available under the trade names Polamidone and Heptadon, among others. Covidien (formerly Mallinckrodt), is the major racemic methadone producer and sells bulk methadone to producers of generic preparations and distributes its own product in the form of tablets, dispersible tablets and oral concentrate under the brand name Methadose in the United States.
