Volume 19, Issue 1 (January 1974) Methadone—A Cause of Death The
past few years have seen a dramatic increase in the use of
methadone in the United States, predominantly as a method of
treating narcotic addiction. Concomitant with this has been a
proportionate rise in the number of deaths in which methadone is
either the cause of death or an incidental toxicologic finding.
This indicates an increasingly wide-spread abuse of methadone.
In Philadelphia, for example, there were only 4 deaths related
to methadone between 1967 and 1969. The number rose dramatically
in 1970 to 22, in 1971 to 27, and in the first 10 months of 1972
to 37. Of those deaths in 1972, 17 were directly attributable to
methadone, 15 were attributable to a combination of methadone
and one or more other narcotic and dangerous drugs, and 5 were
due to causes other than drugs but methadone was found by
postmortem toxicology.