Drinking Methadone?

When I was in China last year our professor took us to several methadone Maintenance clinics.

As a way of definition: "Methadone is a rigorously well-tested medication that is safe and efficacious for the treatment of narcotic withdrawal and dependence... Heroin releases an excess of dopamine in the body and causes users to need an opiate continuously occupying the opioid receptor in the brain. Methadone occupies this receptor and is the stabilizing factor that permits addicts on methadone to change their behavior and to discontinue heroin use." (http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/methadone/index.html)

Heroine (an injection drug) is still a huge problem in China especially where we were which was in the southwest near the drug triangle in Asia. Our professor traced the AIDS epidemic through the influence of the drug triangle through China in the late 1980s (before that China was very closed and didn't suffer from the AIDS epidemic that was ravaging Africa). We went to this Methadone Maintenance clinic in the southern part of Sichuan. There are about 68 in the Sichuan province and is considered a way to prevent HIV in China.

We walked in and sat down to talk with the director. An old man came into the clinic, drank his treatment, and sat down. He'd been coming for about 8 years (up to twice a day). About this time two ladies came in for their treatment. Amy (my friend who went with me to China) and I figured out that they were mother and daughter. They were dressed very scantily and they were acting pretty crazy. All of a sudden after they had the treatment our professor and the director were speaking very harshly with them. The interaction that was about to happen for 30 minutes was left for our interpretation. Over a few cigarettes the conversation was very animated back and forth. They had clearly done something very wrong and they wanted to leave but were not allowed to. After they eventually were able to leave our professor explained what happened.

They had put the methadone in their mouths but then spit it out into a towel that was under their clothes. They were going to sell it, probably for quite a high price on the black market. After a client takes the Methadone they are required to say something to make sure they actually drank the methadone. These women delayed in saying something because they were spitting the methadone out. Apparently this is quite a normal occurrence. Some people put cotton in their mouths to absorb the methadone so they can later sell it. Most don't get away with it because there the clinicians usually catch them. The mother most likely had been on heroine when she was pregnant and kept the daughter on heroine through her entire 20 something years! My sense was that they were not that interested in stopping anytime soon either!