nels examined the problem and by 1963 had come to the same conclusion: it was time to re-examine nearly fifty years of prohibition and consider allowing doctors to prescribe addicts the opiates they needed. (http://www.methadone.org/origin.html)
At Rockefeller University in New York City, Dr. Vincent Dole, an expert in metabolic disorders and a psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Marie Nyswander, who'd worked at the U.S. Public Health Hospital/Prison for addicts in Lexington, Kentucky, began experiments with several chronic heroin addicts. In attempting to determine if addicts could be maintained on stable doses of pharmaceutical opiates. The volunteers were given access to the spectrum of opiates available to medical practitioners. The researchers tried everything from morphine to dilaudid, but found that it was extremely difficult to stabilize the subjects. The addicts were either over sedated or in mild withdrawal most of the time, and spent their days either "on the nod", waiting for their next shot, or comparing the relative merits of the drugs used. Reluctantly, Dr. Dole and Dr. Nyswander concluded that the experiment had been a failure, and decided to "detox" the addicts and release them from the
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