Split Dosing of Methadone May Reduce NAS

I just read a new article (McCarthy et al, Journal of Addiction Medicine, Vol. 9, (2), pp105-110, March/April 2015) on methadone dosing during pregnancy. This study’s data showed reduced incidence of withdrawal in babies born to moms on divided doses of methadone compared to once-daily dosing. This data also showed reduced incidence of withdrawal in these moms on higher total doses of methadone compared to what we have seen in the past with lower maternal doses.

Current practice is to adjust the maternal dose of methadone according to how she feels. If she has withdrawal signs and symptoms, we increase her dose. We assume that if the mother’s at an adequate dose, the fetus should be doing OK too. We know reduced dosing of methadone during pregnancy is not recommended due to higher relapse rates in the mom, and worse fetal and maternal outcomes. Additionally, past studies showed no clear relationship between the maternal methadone dose and the likelihood of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). In other words, increased maternal dose doesn’t increase the incidence or severity of withdrawal in the newborn.

However, we also have past studies which showed a significant decrease in fetal heart rates and fetal movement during times of peak methadone levels (several hours after dosing), compared to fetal heart rates and movement during times of trough blood levels (end of the 24-hour dosing cycle). Those studies showed more normal fetal heart rates and movement after splitting the total dose into equal doses, which is called split dosing. Due to this data, many opioid treatment program doctors have been trying to split the mom’s total methadone dose into two halves, a morning and evening dose.

The authors of this new study decided to build on past data and look at more than once-daily dosing of methadone during pregnancy. They also increased the total dose of methadone to treat any maternal report of withdrawal.

The study is a bit complicated. It was a retrospective chart review done in an eight-hundred patient opioid addiction treatment program in California from June 2008 until January 2013. The study followed sixty-two pregnant patients who were 83% white, 13% Hispanic, 2% African American, and 2% Asian. Of these sixty-two patients, 71% used primarily prescription opioids and 29% used mainly heroin. Some of these patients were already pregnant when they enrolled in treatment and some (32%) became pregnant after starting treatment with methadone. Sixty-six percent of these patients were smokers.

All the patients were moved to twice-daily dosing within several weeks of entry into treatment. Subsequent increases and further dividing of maternal dose was determined by maternal report of opioid withdrawal, and on methadone trough blood levels. All efforts were made to maintain maternal blood level in the “therapeutic range.” Most women dosed three or four times per day by the last trimester, and the average maternal dose at delivery was 152mg per day.
The highest dose in this study was seen in a pregnant patient who was a fast metabolizer of methadone. She required a total dose of 415mg, which was split into six doses. Interestingly, her infant did not need treatment for NAS.

The outcomes of the study were unusual in several ways.

Of the fourteen hundred urine drug screens collected on these pregnant patients, 88.4% were negative for illicit drugs. The mean gestational age was 38 weeks, and only 18% of the babies were born before 37 weeks gestation.

But here is the most noteworthy finding: only 29% of the babies had neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) that was severe enough to need treatment. As in other studies, this study showed no correlation between maternal dose and the incidence of NAS.

In the past, the incidence of neonatal withdrawal syndrome has been estimated at 60-80%, though the MOTHER study of 2010 (Jones et. al) found 50% of infants born to both moms on methadone and moms on buprenorphine had withdrawal that was severe enough to need treatment. (That study also found infants born to moms on buprenorphine stayed in the hospital half as long as babies born to moms on methadone, and also had much less severe NAS.)

In this present study, the babies conceived during methadone treatment were not significantly more likely to have NAS than the babies born to moms who conceived prior to entering medication-assisted treatment with methadone.

Male infants were a little more likely to need treatment for NAS than the females.

The authors concluded that divided methadone dosing and adequate methadone dosing during pregnancy increased maternal recovery and resulted in less stress on developing fetuses. The authors postulate there was less sensitization to repeated episodes of intrauterine withdrawal, which ultimately resulted in much lower rates of neonatal abstinence syndrome.

The authors also identified some limitations of their study, and recommended further investigation.

Over the last few years, doctors in North Carolina have been trying to do split dosing on pregnant women when possible. To do this, the woman must be stable enough to manage the second half of the dose, given as a take home. If there’s an addicted male partner at home, that second dose may fall into the wrong hands, and the pregnant patient can get shorted part of her dose. That’s not a good thing during pregnancy, so it’s all about balancing risks with benefits.

This is an intriguing study, but it’s probably too soon to change what we are doing in OTPs. I know I’d like to hear how ASAM experts interpret this information.

The information in this study was gleaned from a retrospective review of patients, which may not be as good a study as a prospective double-blind study, if such could be conducted.

I’m impressed with the 66% smoking rate. I estimate that around 95% of pregnant patients at the OTPs where I work are addicted to nicotine. But I live in a tobacco state, and the study, done in California, has fewer smokers. I think that might be a significant difference, because we know NAS is more like to occur in smokers. Did that play a role in the lower NAS incidence found in this study?

Did the authors of this study take any extra measures to ensure their pregnant patients were living in a safe environment, conducive to recovery? Are the authors sure their pregnant patients were able to consume all of their take home doses? Were any doses diverted, willingly or unwillingly, to other people? Sometimes female patients live with partners who are also addicted, and the patients may be tempted or coerced into giving a dose to a partner in opioid withdrawal. If this happened it could change conclusions of this study.

I suspect the average maternal dose in this study was higher than at most opioid treatment programs in my area. As the authors concluded, this likely improved the mothers’ health and outcomes. This study had a very low rate of positive drug screens, so these patients appear to have been doing exceptionally well in treatment. So is it possible that there could be less withdrawal in babies born to moms on higher doses? That seems counterintuitive, but the authors do suggest that could be why they had low NAS incidence.

The pregnant women in this study got more counseling and support from their OTP than may be provided in other OTPs. The patients in this study had a weekly meeting with a pregnancy counselor, weekly group meeting for education and support facilitated by the clinic physician, psychiatric assessment, and monthly supportive psychotherapy. They got weekly urine drug screens, so there was close accountability. They also had methadone trough blood levels drawn when needed.

The study presents intriguing data. We need more information, more studies to see if higher and divided methadone doses will provide better outcomes with less NAS, as was seen in this study.

Opioid Blockers: Do They Take All the Fun Out of Life?

According to an interesting article in the most recent copy of the American Journal on Addictions, the answer appears to be, “No,” at least for some people. (1)

 This article described a study where researchers asked patients on the extended-release opioid blocker naltrexone to rate the amount of pleasure they obtained from things like eating good food, sex, and exercise. These patients were on naltrexone for the treatment of alcoholism, but of course, the information may be helpful for opioid addicts who are treated with opioid blockers to prevent relapse back to opioid use. The subjects were asked to rate, on a scale of 1 to 5, the amount of pleasure they obtained from activities such as sex, eating good food, exercise, talking with friends, and other usually enjoyable things in life. A score of 1 meant they felt no pleasure at all, and 5 meant they felt much pleasure.

 The good news is that pleasure scores for these patients were relatively high. For example, the average score for pleasure from eating good food was 4.14, out of a possible 5. For listening to music, it was 4.00 out of 5. For sex, it was 3.92. For drinking alcohol, it was only 2.57 out of 5, which supports the use of this medication for alcoholics.

 In summary, the study found that subjects on extended-release naltrexone still experienced a good amount of pleasure from life.

 There were limitations to this study, however. We don’t have a pre-naltrexone baseline for these patients. In other words, we know pleasure ratings were fairly high while on naltrexone, but it’s possible these subjects had even higher pleasure scores before naltrexone. Also, there was no placebo control in the study. Maybe people getting pretend, or sham, treatments would have had higher pleasure scores, but we don’t know. 

In my mind, the biggest weakness was that the study enrolled 187 patients, but only 74 completed the intended survey. That means about 60% of the subjects dropped out of treatment, and the article doesn’t say why they dropped out. Maybe the drop-outs were the ones to feel a lack of pleasure in their lives from being on naltrexone, and the ones who stayed on it didn’t have this same side effect. If so, this would obviously skew the results.

 But even with these admitted weaknesses, and even though the study was paid for by the company that manufactures the sustained-release naltrexone (Vivitrol), this article gives hope that Vivitrol may work for opioid addiction. It may help prevent relapses, without interfering with life’s pleasures. And we need every tool we can get to fight addiction.

1. 1.      O’Brien, Charles; Gastfriend, David; Forman, Robert; Schweizer, Edward; Pettinati, Helen, Long-Term Opioid Blockade and Hedonic Response: Preliminary Data from Two Open-Label Extension Studies with Extended-Release Naltrexone, American Journal on Addictions, Vol. 20 (2), March/April 2011, pp106-112.

The Story of a Recovering Addict

Following is an interview with a successfully recovering opioid addict. He received treatment at methadone clinics off and on for years, and finally achieved medication-free recovery after going to an inpatient treatment program for 42 days. Later, he began to work in the field of addiction treatment as a methadone counselor. He was promoted multiple times over the years to his present position as director of the narcotic treatment program at his clinic. This is his perspective about his own experience and what he’s seen with methadone treatment.

JB: Can you tell me your title at the opioid treatment clinic where you work?

KS: Director of Narcotic Treatment, which is our opioid treatment program. [He supervises counselors working at multiple clinic sites, with a total census of around thirty-four hundred methadone patients]

JB: Can you please tell me about your own opioid addiction, and how you got into recovery, including what kind of substances you may have used, what kind of treatments, and your experiences with them?

KS: I started out using pain killers, mostly Percodan tablets, back in the late 70’s, which lead me to using heroin. Heroin wasn’t easy to get [where I lived], so I started using Dilaudids [a name brand of the drug oxymorphone]. I started using Dilaudid on a regular basis in the county I lived in. That was the primary drug I used for quite a few years.

[My] first experience with methadone treatment started in 1978, with a brief episode of treatment, a matter of a month or so, with no success. Pretty much during the 1980’s, I was on and off methadone programs with little or no success, because I refused to participate in group or individual sessions. At the time, there was very limited counseling going on [at methadone clinics]. If there was a problem, you saw your counselor, and that didn’t happen a whole lot. Patients were simply trying to get more methadone. At that point, the methadone dosages were very low. I think the average dose back then was somewhere between forty and fifty milligrams. And we [patients on methadone] didn’t know that. We didn’t know that. We just found out through….

JB: You didn’t know what dose you were taking?

KS: Oh, no. We didn’t know what dose we were taking, for a number of years. As a matter of fact, that didn’t change until right before 2001.

JB: Wow

KS: Yeah.

JB: Could the patient find out if they wanted to? [the dose they were taking]

KS: We were blind dosed then. That didn’t change until just before 2001.

JB: Was that unusual for methadone clinics to do?

KS: To my knowledge, I think we [the clinic where he now works, and previously was a patient] were one of the last ones to keep doing that. It was just something we had done over the years and never changed it. [The patients] didn’t know what their dose was.

Through the 1980’s, I was on and off methadone programs, sometimes for a few years at a time, and sometimes had some success. The biggest benefit I had from taking methadone and being on the program was that I was able to work. I held a job the entire time, and I wasn’t doing anything criminal.  It served the purpose it was supposed to serve there, because I had to work, and I was able to function fairly normally. But I never moved into actual recovery, and still used some opiates from time to time. So that was pretty much the 80’s. Two good things happened in the 80’s. In 1981 my son was born, and in 1989, I got clean.

JB: Big things.

KS: Two monumental things in my life. So, I went through that period of time I had talked about, when I started using opiates, in about 1974. Then I started getting on the methadone programs, on and off, [starting] from ’78, but I continued to use. I was using Dilaudids on a daily basis for a number of years. When I got on the methadone program, I would curtail that, but always wanted to go back to Dilaudid. That [Dilaudid] became my drug of choice.

I was on the methadone program in 1989, and having some problems with alcohol. Prior to getting on the program, I was told, “We’re not going to allow you on the program, unless you go on Antabuse.” So I did that and I was successful at stopping drinking, and had some success with methadone. I decided I wanted off the methadone, started detoxing off, and had a series of positive drug screens for a variety of opiates: morphine, Dilaudid, and several different things I had access to. The methadone center said, “We’re going to make a recommendation that you enter residential treatment.” And I said, “Sounds great to me, I’ll do that in a couple months.” And they said, “No. We’re going to make a recommendation you do that… pretty quickly.”

And that’s what happened. I said, “I don’t think I can do this. I’ve got some things to do.” And I remember it like it was yesterday. The counselor got up and walked out of the room and he left me sitting there by myself. Then he walked back in, said, “We’ve got you a bed.” And that’s what lead me to [inpatient treatment].

So I went to forty-two days of residential treatment, and actually entered that program ready to quit using and get into recovery. And from that point on, recovery has been the most important thing in my life….family, of course…but I’ve pursued recovery since May 3, 1989. I followed all the suggestions. [I’m] still really involved with 12- step meetings, and still really involved with some of the same things I did when I first came in [to recovery]. Obviously, I don’t go to as many meetings, but still go to meetings on a regular basis

JB: Do you have any regrets about either type of treatment? The forty-two day inpatient or the methadone?

KS: I do believe that in my case, I needed to be taken away from my environment, simply because of the people I was associated with. That’s not the case for everyone. In my case, I needed to be away from my environment. So the detoxing from the methadone and going into a residential program, that’s what worked for me. Obviously, people can do that other ways. But I still had people in my life that were negative influences.

JB: If you had an opioid addict who presented for treatment for the first time, what would you recommend? If money were no object?

KS: I’d recommend that individual seek inpatient treatment. Now, if they had an extended history of opiate dependency, then that person’s success rate in residential treatment is obviously going to be limited….and…it would just depend on the individual. Methadone treatment might be the way for them to go. I know that’s kind of teetering on the fence. I’m going to be somewhat….I’m going to hold on to how powerful residential treatment was for me. But I had failed at methadone treatment. And, there again, it was a different time, the methadone doses weren’t enough at the time.

JB: Did you feel normal on your dose of methadone or did you [still] feel withdrawal?

KS: I was feeling normal, however, I could still feel drug use [other opioids].

JB: So it wasn’t a blocking dose?

It was not a blocking dose. You knew if you got medicated at 7:00 am, at 5:00 pm you could fairly well feel somewhat of a rush and feel the effects of [other opioids].

JB: How did you get started working in the field of addiction treatment?

KS: I came out of treatment, worked for a family business for a couple of years, and always, from day one, I thought, “What a fascinating thing….if I could somehow do this…to get into that line of work [meaning addiction counseling].

 I started, after two years, as an evening counselor at a residential treatment program, and saw that I really wanted to do that. There was an avenue for non-degreed people to come in to a counselor position. You didn’t have to have a degree in substance abuse or anything like that, so I pursued that, and followed the certification process. I didn’t work in residential treatment but nine months, and then moved to methadone counseling. From that point on, I had found what I wanted to do. And I’ve been offered a promotion at the treatment center to another department when I was over the methadone program, and turned it down to stay with that population [meaning opioid addicts in treatment on methadone].

JB: So you obviously enjoy it.

KS: Oh yeah.

JB: What did you like about it?

KS: I think my ability to relate to that population, without having any thought or putting any real effort…I don’t have to think about it. I know I can talk to that population, and I know I can make them feel normal, by just holding a conversation with them….it might not be about drug use. It might not be about anything pertaining to the treatment episode, but I feel like…that I know exactly where they’re coming from, and I can give them some hope that they don’t have to keep living that way. Just an identification with that population.

JB: That’s a precious gift.

KS: I agree.

JB: Do you believe that your background in addiction helps you when you talk to patients?

KS: I do. I believe wholeheartedly that you can’t teach that. I’ve had some people work for me who had a graduate degree, have never personally had an incidence of opioid addiction or any addiction in their family, and they’re absolutely fantastic clinicians. And you know they’re in that line of work for a reason. So [personal experience with addiction] does not need to be a criterion; in my case, it helps. I find it fascinating to watch someone work who has no self-history of addiction. They can be very effective.

JB: What are the biggest challenges you face now at your work?

KS: That would be…documentation. [The demand for] documentation in this field has really overcome the interpersonal relationship. I can’t help but think as time goes on, that’s going to continue. We don’t have twenty or thirty minutes to sit down with a client, and get into one issue after another, or whatever [the client] may have on their plate. And in opioid treatment, a lot of times it’s brief therapy. They [patients] don’t want to talk to you for twenty or thirty minutes. But you don’t have time to do that, because of the documentation. [The counselor has] three people waiting in the lobby, and you’re kind of selling that person short.

The documentation standards continue to rise, and in methadone treatment, I don’t know how that can go hand in hand with a fifty to one case load. Whereas, someone else might have the same documentation required in the mental health field, but they might have sixteen people they’re seeing.

JB: So you’re saying that the state and federal regulations about documentation actually interfere with the amount of counseling the patients get?

KS: Right. Right.

JB: That’s sad.

The clinic where you work has eight different sites. Can you tell me about what sort of interactions you’ve had with the community leaders, local police, and medical community?

KS: Overall, with any opioid treatment program [methadone clinic], there’s going to be a negative stereotype associated with it in the community, as you well know. Local law enforcement has a bias [against] the [methadone] program. What we’ve found is, any interaction we have with them, and the better understanding that they have [of what we do], the better. And I believe we can make a difference in what law enforcement, and other areas of the community [think about methadone programs].  It’s going to have to happen one person at a time.

An example of that would be when I got a call, a couple of weeks ago, to one of the clinics at ten o’clock at night. An alarm is going off. So I meet the police out there, and we go in, make sure nobody’s in the building. I’m trying to give him some information about it [the methadone program].

He says, “Is it true they come in every day and ya’ll shoot ‘em up?” (laughter) So he thinks that’s what happens.

            So, I educated him on what we do and followed that up with, “Why don’t you stop by and get coffee any time you want to and we’ll give you information.” They were very receptive to that. That’s how you’ve got to approach it. Be willing to talk to people and give them information. [Do the] same thing with community leaders. They’re just not educated in outpatient opioid treatment. Once they get some information, they seem to have a different take on it.

JB: Can you tell me what you’ve seen, particularly over the last seven years, about the types of populations that are coming to the clinics, and if that’s changed any?

KS: I started working in methadone treatment seventeen years ago. We used to have statistics on the methadone program. The average age of a person coming on the program was thirty-four years old, at that time. We had eighty or ninety people on the program and that was it. And they were long term users, primarily heroin as drug of choice. We’ve seen what’s happening over the years.

Heroin has decreased somewhat. Prescription medications went wild. I just read information that forty-four percent of patients entering methadone programs in the nation were on prescription opioids. The age of the person coming on the program has dropped from thirty-four into their late twenties. I don’t have that exact number. But we’ve seen them get younger, and we’ve seen prescription drugs take the place of heroin, in driving people into treatment.

JB: What seems to be the main type of prescription drug, or is there one?

KS: OxyContin changed the landscape in our setting. It’s still a driving force, as far as putting people into treatment. We have an increase in heroin here, but the western part of the state…OxyContin and morphine are on the scene….and any painkiller.

JB: Do you have any opinion about why that happened? Why the incidence of pain pill addiction seemed to rise over the last seven to ten years?

KS: If there’s a reason for it….I think it’s generational. It’s passed down. It’s easy. You’ve got doctors giving the mother and the father painkillers for whatever reason, legitimate or not. It gets passed on…obviously there’s a genetic link for some kinds of addiction or alcoholism. I think you know what you’re getting there [meaning a prescription pill]. People addicted to opioid drugs have very few avenues to get quality heroin in those regions of the country. [Pain pills] are a sure bet. Patients say, “I know what I’m getting when I get that pill.”

JB: If you had the ear of policy makers in Washington D.C., what would you tell them? What would you like to see happen in the treatment field for opioid addiction?

KS: I’m going to refer back to what I said earlier. In methadone treatment, there should be some kind of review, as far as what needs to be documented. Obviously, there needs to be accurate documentation, but not to put methadone or opioid treatment into the same mental health arena for documentation requirements. Because you’re dealing with a different environment, a different population, and a different caseload.

JB: Would you like to see buprenorphine play a role [at the methadone clinic]?

KS: Yes, there’s a need for it. You’ve got such a stereotype against methadone facilities, that’s another avenue for people to be in treatment [meaning buprenorphine]….whether it’s administered in the methadone facility or [community] doctor-based, there’s a need for that.

This interview was with one of the many wonderful people I’ve had the honor of working with at methadone clinics. In my years of work in the medical field, I’ve never been surrounded by as many quality people, who had passion for their work, as I have in addiction medicine. I don’t know if I’ve been extremely lucky, or if all addiction treatment centers draw dedicated individuals to work within their systems. Many of these workers try hard to dispel the stigma and social isolation that addicts feel.

Bibliotherapy: More Addiction Memoirs

If I Die Before I Wake, by Barbara Rogers

Anyone struggling with addiction to drugs including alcohol can get something out of this book. The author describes what her addiction was like, what happened to get her into recovery, and what it’s like now. And she went further than that. She described the trials she faced while in recovery, and how she applied the spiritual principles of the twelve steps as she went through these trials. This book is like going to a really good speaker meeting. It will resonate with both newcomers and old-timers in recovery. I will be recommending it to my patients.

Pill Head, by Joshua Lyons

I was envious as I read the book, because he did such a great job of writing an interesting, engaging book, while also educating the reader with (mostly) accurate facts about the disease of opioid addiction. It’s more interesting than my own book, Pain Pill Addiction, though I have more science in mine. Anyway, the author shows the dividedness of many addicts. He wants to be in recovery, and hates the negative consequences that are occurring as a result of his addiction, but he still wants to use pain pills. I don’t think people newly in recovery should read it because it may trigger cravings in the places he describes drug euphoria. His story isn’t one of hope, and I wish he’d waited until he was further into recovery to write the book.

 

Loaded, by Jill Talbot

            Ugh. I didn’t like this book. It was false advertising, for one thing. It was more about her unhappy love life than it was about her alcohol addiction. For the first two-thirds of the book, she laments about how dating married men made her lonely. Duh. Then toward the end she does talk of some sticky situations due to alcohol, and describes her fellow patients at a drug rehab. But then she is vague about her relapse back to drinking, and if she was able to do controlled drinking, or if she went back to her former state.

Wired: the life and Fast Times of Jim Belushi, by Bob Woodward

            It could have been cut in half and been a much better book. The renowned author put in a great many details of the days and nights during the years leading up to the star’s death from drug overdose, and it felt like too much after a few chapters. We get it. He was a wild and crazy guy. He did outrageous things and was tremendously talented and deeply flawed. Maybe knowing the ending made it sad from the start. Another big talent obliterated by addiction.

Broken, by William Cope Myers

            He’s the son of the famous journalist William Myers, and now a spokesman for Hazelden recovery center in Minnesota. This memoir is one of the better ones. He does a good job of describing the guilt that comes after a drug binge, and about his family’s disappointment in him. With a famous father, the press of expectations was an added stress that may have pushed his addiction further.

Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous

I came across a paperback copy in a bargain bin at a thrift store, and bought it to re-read. I read it as a teen, and at that time suspected it was written by an adult to scare kids away from drugs. I wondered if I’d think differently reading it as an adult. I didn’t. I certainly didn’t sound like it was written by a fifteen year old. It’s a fair book, but probably fictional.

Can’t Find My Way Home, by Martin Torgoff

I’ll re-read this one. It’s a comprehensive history of drug addiction in the U.S. from 1945 until 2000. Focused on the various political movements and popular trends of different years, it puts drug use into cultural context. It also gives some specifics behind some famous drug users and drug legalization proponents. It was fascinating. At the end, the author unexpectedly described his own recovery. Anyone wanting to read more about the 1960’s and 70’s drug culture should read this book.

“The End of My Addiction,” by Dr. Oliver Amiesen

            I only got this book because a few patients mentioned it. I pre-judged this book, thinking the author must be a pompous doctor, hater of Alcoholics Anonymous, who wrote a lame book on a half-baked theory about addiction treatment, just for his self-glorification. I was completely wrong. The author writes about his own addiction with self-awareness and humility. He doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but presents a credible treatment that may benefit alcoholics. He started himself on high-dose baclofen, a muscle relaxant that’s been around for years. It quenched his thirst for alcohol. He presents a good enough argument to justify a large randomized controlled trial to test the theory that high-dose baclofen suppresses alcohol cravings. The book is well-written and interesting. Dr. Amiesen describes his own travails with addiction in some detail.

The Narcotic Farm: A Bit of History

We don’t have to keep re-inventing the wheel.

We can investigate the success rates of addiction treatment methods used over the past century, see what worked, and what didn’t work. We can use programs of proven benefit or we can continue to spend money on programs repeatedly shown to have little benefit.

From 1935 until 1962, drug addicts were treated at a unique facility, part jail and part treatment hospital. Initially named the United States Narcotic Farm, it was later changed to the U.S. Public Health Service Narcotics Hospital. Even after this name change, most people still called it the Narcotic Farm.

This facility was located on twelve acres of Kentucky farmland. The facility was created by the Public Health Service and the Bureau of Prisons, meant to serve a dual purpose. It was a treatment hospital, where drug addicts could voluntarily be admitted for treatment of their addiction, and it was also a federal prison, where drug offenders were sent to serve their sentences. About two thirds of the inpatients were prisoners and the other third were addicts, voluntarily seeking help for opioid addiction. Both types of patients were treated side by side. For over forty years, it was the main drug addiction treatment center in the United States, along with a similar facility in Ft. Worth, Texas, which opened in 1937.

            The Narcotic Farm was a massive institution for its time. It had fifteen-hundred beds, and housed tens of thousands of patients over its forty years of operation. It was located in a rural area of Kentucky, which gave it space for numerous operations to engage the prisoners – now called patients – in all types of job training. (1)

             The Narcotic Farm really was a farm. Besides growing many types of vegetables, there was a working dairy, and livestock including pigs and chickens. These operations provided food for the patients and staff of the facility and provided work for the patients. The patients provided the labor to keep the farm going and it was hoped they would simultaneously learn useful trades. In addition to farming, they learned skills in sewing, auto repair, carpentry, and other trades. Besides teaching new job skills, it was hoped that fresh air, sunshine, and wholesome work would be beneficial to the addicts. (1)

            For its time, the Narcotic Farm was surprisingly progressive in its willingness to try multiple new treatments. For the forty years it operated, many different treatments were tried for opioid addicts. It offered individual and group talk therapies, job training, psychiatric analysis, treatment for physical medical issues, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, art therapy, shock therapy, music therapy, and even hydrotherapy, with flow baths to soothe the nerves. Despite these options, the Farm apparently retained many of the characteristics of a prison, with barred windows and strict security procedures. (1)

             The Narcotic Farm had its own research division, the Addiction Research Center (ARC), which became the forerunner of today’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The Narcotic Farm did pioneering work, using methadone to assist patients through withdrawal, and helped establish the doses used to treat opioid addiction. Methadone was used only short term, for the management of withdrawal symptoms, and not for maintenance dosing at the Narcotic Farm. The Farm also trained a dedicated group of doctors and nurses, who were pioneers in the field of addiction treatment. It provided new information on the nature of addiction.

             Admission to the Narcotic Farm allowed an opioid addict some time to go through opioid withdrawal, eat regular meals, work in one of the farm’s many industries, and have some form of counseling. However, after leaving the hospital, the addicts were entirely released from care and supervision, with no assistance to help re-enter their communities. Most times, they returned to their same living situation and old circumstances encouraged relapse back to drug use and addiction. As a result, two follow up studies of the addicts treated at the Narcotic Farm showed a ninety-three percent and ninety-seven percent relapse rate within six months, with most of the relapses occurring almost immediately upon returning home. Many addicts cycled through the Public Health Hospital multiple times. (1)       

            The Narcotic Farm was eventually turned over to the Bureau of Prisons in 1974, as the treatment for addiction was de-centralized. Since the studies found high relapse rates for addicts returning to their previous communities, it was hoped by moving treatment centers into communities, these addicts could have ongoing support after they left inpatient treatment.

1. Nancy P. Campbell, The Narcotic Farm: The rise and fall of America’s first prison for drug addicts, (New York, Abrams, 2008)

 

This is an excerpt from my new book, “Pain Pill Addiction: Prescription for Hope.” 

Available at http://prescriptionforhope.com

 and on Amazon and Ebay

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