Word: heroines
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When methadone was first introduced 24 years ago, it was hailed as a magic bullet aimed at the heart of heroin addiction. A neat, clean medical solution to a social problem. It has proved to be something less than that. Methadone is a treatment, not a cure, for addiction, and an imperfect one at that. But for some 100,000 of the country's half-million heroin addicts, it offers an alternative to shooting up as well as the possibility of a productive life...
...most promising of several drugs to combat addiction that are being tested is buprenorphine, a pain reliever that in early trials has shown clear advantages over methadone as a treatment for heroin addiction. Under development by a team at Yale University, the drug, like methadone, induces a generalized feeling of contentment rather than heroin's precipitate rush and euphoria. It is at least as effective as methadone in easing physical withdrawal and reducing cravings, and it is significantly more potent in blocking heroin's high if the addict tries to shoot up again. Unlike methadone, buprenorphine is relatively nonaddictive...
...bonus, buprenorphine seems radically to suppress the urge to take cocaine, which is abused by an estimated 70% to 80% of heroin addicts. Methadone also tends to reduce coke use, but less dramatically. While methadone may wean half of those treated from cocaine, buprenorphine could slash the number of coke abusers to almost nil, says Yale researcher Thomas Kosten. A Harvard study of rhesus monkeys habituated to using coke found that daily doses of buprenorphine led the monkeys to kick the habit completely...
...designed for use on the job. It is easy to conceal, since it burns with virtually no odor, and the gratification is swift: an intense, almost sexual euphoria that lasts only about five minutes and is not accompanied by such telltale side effects as alcohol's slurred speech and heroin's drowsiness...
...count there are 365,000 American babies who were exposed to drugs in the womb, two-thirds of them the victims of crack. Unlike earlier street drugs, crack has lured at least as many women as men, with corrosive effects on family life. "I used to have heroin mothers in court who could hold a family together," says Penny Ferrer, director of New York City's office of adoption services. "But crack mothers cannot." And even as new cases cascade into the child-welfare system, the number of foster parents has been declining. With more women working, fewer are home...