People Who Use Illegal Opioids Use of Methadone over Time, and What Characteristics Are Correlated with Staying in Methadone Maintenance Treatment

Our findings may be related to the many barriers to long-term participation in MMT, such as travel distance, the need for regular attendance, and patients' dissatisfaction with opioid treatment programs. Consistent participation in MMT may become acceptable only when the difficulties and burdens of criminalized drug use begin to outweigh those of MMT participation, and after non-medication-using treatments have already been tried. Efforts to make MMT less burdensome could reduce the tendency to avoid MMT until later in life and improve people's consistency of participation over time.