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50 °F Forecast | Road Cams Saturday, September 18, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Rogue Valley's Finest EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend August 29, 2004 Lisa Taylor of Eagle Point lost her brother, Mike Roberts, to a methadone overdose last spring. Too much of the powerful drug can cause the respiratory system to shut down. Taken in prescribed doses, however, the drug works as a safe way to ease pain. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Methadone: GOOD DRUG, BAD DRUG An addiction treatment medicine turns lethal on the street By BILL KETTLER Mail Tribune Adrug you don’t hear much about has killed 21 people in Jackson County since January 2003. What most people know about methadone begins and ends with heroin addicts. It’s been used for years to help them avoid the excruciating pain of narcotic withdrawal. Methadone also can be used to treat chronic pain, but in the wrong hands, it can be deadly. Lisa Taylor of Eagle Point lost her brother to methadone last spring. She knew something wasn’t right when they talked on the phone the night before he died. "He sounded funny," she says, sitting at her kitchen table, reflecting on that Friday night back in April. "I thought he was intoxicated." Advertisement Mike Roberts assured his sister he wasn’t drinking, but Taylor was still worried. Roberts, 36, had drug problems in the past, and he was living in a rundown place out on Meridian Road with a woman who used drugs, too. "He sounded like somebody who’d just come home from the bar." Taylor and her brother made plans for the weekend. He would come to her place on Saturday, put up the family’s backyard swimming pool, and stay for dinner. She got a call from her brother’s landlord just after noon on Saturday. "You need to come here real quick," the landlady told her. "I just knew he was dead," Taylor says. Jackson County sheriff’s deputies and an ambulance crew were already there when Taylor arrived. Deputies found a prescription bottle of methadone that Roberts’ girlfriend had filled for 60 tablets just two days earlier. There were only five pills left in the bottle. The woman told deputies she and Roberts both were drug addicts and had been taking methadone, according to a sheriff’s report filed April 18, the day Roberts died. Medical examiners later found lethal levels of methadone in his bloodstream. Too much of the powerful drug simply shut down his vital organs. "He just fell asleep and never woke up," his sister says. Twelve Jackson County residents died of methadone overdoses in 2003. Roberts and eight others died from overdoses during the first eight months of 2004. Fatal overdoses from all other drugs accounted for just six additional deaths in the county during the first six months of 2004, says Tim Pike, a Jackson County sheriff’s detective and a deputy medical examiner. Like Roberts, some of those who died from too much methadone acquired the drugs without a doctor’s consent. But four of the nine who died in 2004 had legitimate prescriptions. Pike says some of those deaths appear to have been deliberate suicides, while others seem to have been accidental overdoses. "Folks are feeling better after they take one," Pike says, "and they think, ‘If one made me feel better, two or three will make me feel even better.’ "For people who are not used to it, a couple (of tablets) could be lethal." Jackson County’s methadone deaths echo a surge in methadone fatalities across Oregon and the United States, as more of the drug comes into the hands of people who have little understanding of how it works or the dangers of abusing it. In 2002, methadone killed 103 Oregonians (two more than heroin), making it the state’s most lethal drug. Methadone was discovered during World War II when German scientists were looking for a substitute for morphine, which was in short supply. It’s been used for more than 50 years to help recovering heroin addicts avoid withdrawal pains. Addicts receive carefully controlled daily doses of methadone at treatment clinics. They get just enough to avoid withdrawal symptoms, and they have to report every day to get their dose. Like morphine and other opiates, methadone works as a pain killer, too. Unlike those other drugs, it produces very little euphoria, or "rush," at the dosage that controls pain. That makes it an ideal drug for people trying to lead normal lives despite pain that never goes away. Duane Martin of Phoenix has taken methadone for more than a year to blunt the gut-wrenching pain of hepatitis C. "The methadone doesn’t make the pain go away," says Martin, 44, "but it makes it tolerable. I don’t think I could sleep without it." Unfortunately, methadone will make people feel good if they take larger quantities, says Steve Brummett, who manages Jackson County’s methadone treatment program. "Two to four hours after taking it orally, people report a sense of well being," Brummett says, "and then it tapers down over time." Methadone’s long "half-life" in the body makes it a dangerous recreational drug, says Dr. Robert Trujillo, an anesthesiologist who oversees the pain clinic at Providence Medford Medical Center. Long after the pleasant feeling fades, methadone remains in the bloodstream. "That’s where people get in trouble," Trujillo says. "The half-life varies from person to person. "They figure, ‘I’ll take a few, get the high, and go down,’" he says. "Then they take another dose." A person who takes a few methadone tabs over a relatively short time could build up enough of the drug to cause respiratory shutdown, especially if he or she has been drinking or using other drugs. Doctors who give patients methadone for pain sometimes write a prescription for 30 or more tablets. Some of those drugs inevitably wind up in the hands of people like Roberts’ girlfriend who get drugs they don’t really need to sell or share with friends. Trujillo says doctors find themselves stuck in the middle. The state monitors how many opiates they prescribe but also encourages them to treat chronic pain aggressively. "A person who knows how to play the system knows exactly the right things to say" to get methadone, Trujillo says. "How can I read (a patient’s) mind?" Trujillo says. "I can’t." "There are people who are extraordinarily good at duping doctors," says Jim Kronenberg, a spokesman for the Oregon Medical Association. "Those are the ‘doctor shoppers’ who end up with five or six sources for the same drug. They use it themselves or make a small fortune selling it on the street." Reducing the amount of methadone on the street would require society to change its attitudes about chemical dependency, pain management and drug use, says Dr. Paul Amstutz, an Ashland neurosurgeon. "We’d have to remove the social stigma of chemical dependency, and the impediments to care (for chemical dependency)," he says. "The problem will never go away. We’ve got to figure out some more effective way of coping with it." Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities