Materia Medica Malaysiana

Methodone Drug Sale And Usage To Be Monitored, Controlled

PUTRAJAYA, May 18 (Bernama) -- The use and sale of the methodone alternative drug proposed to be prescribed to drug addicts to kick their drug addiction habit will be monitored and controlled to check abuse.
Deputy Minister of Internal Security Datuk Noh Omar said the Health Ministry's drug addicts' treatment and rehabilitation committee headed by Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek would determine how the drug would be dispensed effectively.
He said the government had in 1998 introduced the Subutex alternative drug to reduce the number of addicts but because there was no systematic sale and prescription method, the effort proved futile as some addicts abused the drug.
"The problem is when we allowed Subutex, there was no proper control on how to sell and use it. That's why we have to ask the Health Ministry to draw up guidelines on how methodone will be sold to drug addicts," he told reporters, here Wednesday.
Among the proposals he forwarded to the Health Ministry to ensure methodone was not abused was to ask the ministry to shortlist the doctors, hospitals and private clinics allowed to prescribe the drug, he said.
Noh said he was informed that the pilot project to use methodone as an alternative drug therapy would be started before the year-end.
He said methodone, which costs about RM13 a capsule, was being widely used in the United States as the "main ingredient" to treat drug addicts.
It proved successful in reducing the number of heroin and morphine dependant hardcore addicts, he said.
In the United States, he said, the amount of methodone consumption was controlled as only 20 per cent of the 810,000 addicts were allowed to take the drug in 2000.
Deputy Prime Minister and National Anti-Drug Action Committee Chairman Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced on April 17 that the government was in the final stages of introducing methodone to treat drug addiction among addicts to reduce the number of drug dependants in the country.