Methadone Maintenance

In August 1969, Dr. Robert Dupont conducted a study in a Washington, D.C., jail and found that 44% of those arrested tested positive for heroin. Convinced of the relationship between drugs and crime, he designs a methadone treatment program. (Methadone, a pharmaceutical, meets a heroin addict's physical needs and renders the actual drug ineffective, easing or ending the addiction.) Dupont's idea is to give people free methadone so they won't turn to crime to get money to buy their highs.

This first local program is controversial. Some see it as a conspiracy to round up drug addicts; others feel that distributing methadone condones addiction. But crime in D.C. declines dramatically that year — burglaries fall an astounding 41%. Still, a national program doesn't materialize. Then, in April 1971, a national report reveals that 10 to 15% of servicemen abroad — about 30,000 men — use heroin. Suddenly, good, patriotic boys — not just marginalized criminal addicts — are known to have a drug problem.

In the summer of 1971, the Nixon White House launches a national methadone maintenance program as the centerpiece of a multi-part drug abuse initiative. The goal is to make treatment so available that no one can claim he or she couldn't get help. The social, not criminal, issue of drugs is on every politician's agenda. In 1972, Congress unanimously supports Nixon's comprehensive federal drug legislation. The strategy of making treatment available will be short-lived, however. Soon law enforcement and interdiction will become the nation's dominant approach to drugs.

Vietnam War. G.I's smoking marijuana in Saigon, 1971. by David Burnett