ArticleThe International journal on drug policy2020
Methadone maintenance treatment is swapping one drug for another, and that's why it works: Towards a treatment-based critique of the war on drugs.
Article in The International journal on drug policy, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 24 citations in OpenAlex.
- Experiences of non-prescribed opioid use during opioid agonist therapy: an interpretative phenomenological analysis.Addiction science & clinical practice · 2026Article
- "With this you're not chained down to something": contrasting experiences of opioid agonist treatment and safer supply program participation among people receiving prescribed safer supply.Harm reduction journal · 2026Article
- "You don't have the right resources to let it hurt": How structural vulnerabilities shape opioid withdrawal experiences among a community sample of people who inject drugs in Los Angeles, California.Harm reduction journal · 2025Article
- "I still can feel the sickness": Withdrawal experiences of people on methadone maintenance treatment.Journal of substance use and addiction treatment · 2025Article
- Analysis and mapping of harm reduction research in the context of injectable drug use: identifying research hotspots, gaps and future directions.Harm reduction journal · 2024Article
- "As safe as possible": a qualitative study of opioid withdrawal and risk behavior among people who use illegal opioids.Harm reduction journal · 2023Article
- Examining the impact of the first wave of COVID-19 and associated control measures on interventions to prevent blood-borne viruses among people who inject drugs in Scotland: an interrupted time series study.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2022Article
- Lessons from the First Wave of COVID-19 for Improved Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) Treatment: Benefits of Easier Access, Extended Take Homes, and New Delivery Modalities.Substance use & misuse · 2022Article
- Substance Use Treatment Engagement among Men Who Have Sex with Men Who Use Stimulants in the Northeastern United States.Substance use & misuse · 2022Article
- "It's like 'liquid handcuffs": The effects of take-home dosing policies on Methadone Maintenance Treatment (MMT) patients' lives.Harm reduction journal · 2021Article
- "I'm Going to Stop Myself Before Someone Stops Me": Complicating Narratives of Volitional Substance Use Treatment.Frontiers in sociology · 2021Article
- COVID-19 and People Who Use Drugs - A Commentary.Health behavior and policy review · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The claim that methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is 'just swapping one drug for another' has typically been used to de-legitimize the treatment and attack those who use it. However, this commentary re-positions that argument as a way of bringing analytic focus to the role of structural forces, like criminalization and the war on drugs, in the treatment decisions of people who use illegal drugs. Specifically, I use my experience as a qualitative sociologist who studies MMT as well as my own experience on MMT to demonstrate how criminalization functions as source of harm in the lives of people who use illegal drugs, that drives them towards the legal, and thus comparatively safer, style of substance use made available by MMT. Moreover, I argue that the dominance of individually-focused theories based on addiction and recovery to understand MMT is related to its punitive organizational structure and lack of popularity among people who use illegal opioids. Ultimately, I argue for a paradigm shift, both in policy and scholarship, that acknowledges the pragmatic value of MMT within the structural context of criminalization.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.