To the Editor:

It's time that we who provide medical addiction treatment that
ultimately makes patients narcotic-free speak up against methadone
maintenance programs as they are now constituted (news article, Sept.
30). It is morally wrong to promote methadone maintenance as a
treatment because, in reality, it replaces one narcotic with another,
and especially since we can inexpensively, medically detoxify the
heroin addict over a few days.

Also, to promote methadone maintenance programs that are open-ended
and provide support for a life-time of addiction is an insult to the
thousands of recovering addicts who are able to kick the habit without
methadone and who are now drug-free.

NICHOLAS A. PACE, M.D. New York, Oct. 2, 1998