The Daily Dose –
OCTOBER 29, 2019 – Liquid Handcuffs: A Documentary to Free Methadone is a feature documentary, created by Filter Senior Editor Helen Redmond and Marilena Marchetti, that shines a light on the secretive world of methadone clinics. These clinics have been operating for over 40 years in the United States, but few people know what goes on inside. Methadone is the world’s most successful treatment for opioid addiction, and proven to cut the death rate by half or more when used long-term. So why is it still easier to get dangerously-adulterated street heroin than methadone? Mass media depictions of methadone are stigma-packed and fuel neighborhood NIMBY opposition to new clinics. In the era of an opioid-involved overdose crisis, this opposition is deadly as well as cruel. Liquid Handcuffs travels to six countries with very different methadone regimes—Afghanistan, India, Portugal, Russia, the UK and the US—in search of answers. It’s vital that a harm reduction-oriented, pro-methadone documentary is included in this recovery film festival, where most of the films screened promote abstinence. Within the recovery community, widespread prejudice against medication-assisted treatment (MAT) remains (although there are many positive and fast-changing attitudes, too). It is still not uncommon to hear methadone use described as “substituting one drug for another.”
