A new program based in Vancouver,B.C. Canada is using marijuana as an aid in with drawing from methadone.The marijuana is bud placed in capsules and rated in strengths from 30-100 mgms.The patient is brought down in methadone dosage as always.The difference is that the patient is given capsules of marijuana to be taken at bedtime to ease any discomfort from the drop in dose.The one person I know that has gone through the program successfully is off the methadone and expressed that the discomfort was minimal and that she:"slept through the whole thing".There were a few(4)days of minor discomfort but the marijuana eliminated the long nights that the lessening of a methadone dosage can cause and the weeks of sleepless nights following the last dose of methadone were non existent.The person in question went from a dosage of 75 mgms a day to nothing in just under two months.This after a 6 year addiction to methadone and many years on the street doing heroin and cocaine.I am as aware as anyone that the major factor in any of these success stories is that the person in question wants to quit and is ready to do so.That being said,this was a really easy withdrawal and I was as amazed as anyone that marijuana was in any way effective in easing the pain of the experience.This is a major improvement over the clonidine that was used when I was imprisoned the last few times.In the early seventies the prison(Okalla) used to use methadone to withdraw addicts from heroin.It was a painful experience but far less harmful than the alternative.Then the doctor that was sympathetic to addicts retired(he had delayed his retirement long into his 70's as he knew as soon as he left the institution would revert back to the cold turkey that the other B.C. prisons used)and sure enough the medical staff decided that the heroin was so diluted that methadone was no longer required.Perhaps one day they will take a page from this program and use marijuana,at least as a sleeping aid while kicking a habit.I always felt that an addict did more time in the first month than other inmates did in a year.Lets hope that this program is given the attention it deserves.I'm afraid that as soon as the ruling against federal drug laws is over that the Harper government will pretend that this and other programs that are showing success will be stopped and filed away in some dusty corridor in Ottawa,never to be heard from again.They will have a tough time explaining why a program that actually got someone off methadone with relatively little discomfort failed to inspire them but they have a long history of ignoring evidence in favor of moral doctrine.Lets hope the program has enough data to support it's continuation in spite of the conservative governments prejudices.

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