Page "Methadone" Paragraph 68

In the United States, deaths linked to methadone more than quadrupled in the five year period between 1999 and 2004.

According to the U. S. National Center for Health Statistics, as well as a 2006 series in the Charleston ( West Virginia ) Gazette, medical examiners listed methadone as contributing to 3, 849 deaths in 2004.

That number was up from 790 in 1999.

Approximately 82 percent of those deaths were listed as accidental, and most deaths involved combinations of methadone with other drugs ( especially benzodiazepines ).