Make Methadone Easier to Get
The argument against using drugs like methadone and Suboxone to kick heroin usually gets whittled to a cliched, and inaccurate, phrase: It’s trading one addiction for another. But ask Dr. Jessie Gaeta about some of the clients she treats in the heart of Boston’s so-called Methadone Mile and she’ll describe regimens that are about trading despair for hope
The argument against using drugs like methadone and Suboxone to kick heroin usually gets whittled to a cliched, and inaccurate, phrase: It’s trading one addiction for another. But ask Dr. Jessie Gaeta about some of the clients she treats in the heart of Boston’s so-called Methadone Mile and she’ll describe regimens that are about trading despair for hope. Gaeta, who is chief medical officer at Boston Health Care for the Homeless, knows all about the doomsday scenarios that often play out on the grimy blocks around Massachusetts Avenue and Albany Street, where a mix of shelters, treatment centers, and methadone clinics years ago created a subculture of people desperate to get help or get high. Sometimes both.
