Methadone maintenance treatment provides the heroin addict with individualized health care and medically prescribed methadone to relieve withdrawal symptoms, reduces the opiate craving, and brings about a biochemical balance in the body. Important elements in heroin treatment include comprehensive social and rehabilitation services. (2) The side of using methadone are as follows; hypertension, unstable gait, kidney failure, seizures, allergic reactions, skin rash, and depression.
The symptoms of an overdose from methadone include but are not limited to the following: constipation, weak pulse, low blood pressure, drowsiness, disorientation, coma, and death. (3) As a result of all of these health problems due to drug use it has put a tremendous strain on the health care system in this country, and it has caused the average worker to pay higher taxes to help to relieve the burden of paying for this health care. In fact drug use also has a negative affect on the communities where drugs are most prevalent.
For example research by the American Public Health Association shows its objectives; the study examined differences between the visibility of drugs and drug use in more than 2100 neighborhoods, challenging an assumption about drug use in poor, minority, and urban communities. The methods: a telephone survey assessed substance use and attitudes across 41 communities in an evaluation of a national community- based demand reduction programs. Three waves of data were collected from more than 42000 respondents.
The results; measures of neighborhood disadvantage, population density, and proportion of minority residents explained more than 57% of the variance between census tracts in visibility of drug sales but less than 10% of tract-to-tract variance in drug use. Visible drug sales were 6. 3 times more likely to be reported in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods than in the least disadvantaged, while illicit drug use was only 1. 3 times more likely. Conclusions: the most disadvantaged neighborhoods have the most visible drug problems, but drug use is nearly equally distributed across all communities.
Thus, efforts to address drug-related problems in poorer areas need to take into account the broader drug market served by these neighborhoods. (4) With this in mind let’s take a look at an article written for the American Journal of Psychiatry, title Ethnic Disparities in Unmet need for Alcoholism, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Care. Objective: recent policy has focused on documenting and reducing ethnic disparities in availability and quality of health care. The authors examined differences by ethnic status in unmet need for alcoholism, drug abuse, and mental health treatment.
Method: data were from a follow-up-survey of adult respondents to a 1966-1997 national survey. Non-Hispanic whites, African Americans, and Hispanics were compared in access to alcoholism and drug abuse treatment and mental health care (primary or specialty), unmet need for care, satisfaction with care, and use of active treatment for alcoholism, drug abuse, and mental health problems in the prior 12 months. Results: a total of 31. 9% of whites, 28. 1% of African Americans, were more likely to have no access to alcoholism, drug abuse, or mental health care (25. 4% versus 12.
5%), and Hispanics were more likely to have less care than needed or delayed care(22. 7% versus 10. 7%). Among those with need, whites were more likely than Hispanics or African Americans to be receiving active alcoholism, drug abuse, or mental health treatment (37. 6% versus22. 4%-25. 0%). Conclusions: the authors document greater unmet need for alcoholism and drug abuse treatment and mental health care among African American and Hispanics relative to whites. New policies are needed to improve access to and quality of alcoholism, drug abuse, and mental health treatment across diverse populations.
(5) According to an article in Pub-Med. a service of the national library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health the rising level of drug abuse and health problems is the outcome of a program of “planned shrinkage” and implemented against African-American and Hispanic communities, and implemented through systematic and continuing denial of municipal services particularly fire extinguishment resources essential for maintaining urban levels of population density and ensuring community stability. This work complements a recent study by McCord and Freeman (1. New Engl. J. Med.
332,173, 1990) on Harlem, and suggests the present overburdening of New York’s criminal justice system arises from almost exactly the same causes as its accelerating inability t o meet demands for acute medical service, so-called “medical gridlock” in that both are expressions of the increasing social disorganization of poor communities initiated and continued in considerable part by government policy. The critical role played by improper policy in triggering the syndrome suggests ecologically informed interventions, particularly essential service restoration, may hold the potential for great impact. (6)