(Klein and Reichert, 1974)
»For availability information, contact filmmaker.
In the early seventies, more money was spent on methadone than on any other form of drug treatment for heroin addiction, and today methadone maintenance continues to be a government sanctioned, medically approved strategy for treating heroin/opioid addictions. Methadone: An American Way of Dealing brings us face to face with the reality of addiction in the context of persistent racism, sexism and economic inequality. Through the perspectives of street people, factory workers, hustlers, mothers and other methadone addicts, the film contrasts the experience of clients at a Midwestern methadone clinic, with participants in an alternative treatment program that encourages them to become politically aware and active: to understand not only their own drug problem, but the deeply rooted social inequalities that give rise to it, and in turn to organize for change in their community.
SELECTED SCREENINGS
- Broadcast as a national PBS special
- Broadcast on Independent Focus,WNET-New York
- Whitney Museum of American Art
- Museum of Modern Art
- Festival dei Popoli, Firenze, Italy
- Edinburgh International Film Festival
- Mannheim International Film Week
- Leipzig International Film Festival
- San Francisco Film Festival
- American Film Festival, Special citation
- Flaherty Film Seminar
A terrible and beautiful film! It deals with the hard stuff! No, not drugs. But with a drugged society. It is as real as a rainy day; and as poetic as a blues. It’s about official fakery and official hope. It’s certainly more than about junkies looking for a cure; it’s about all of us and The Big Connection.Studs Terkel, author WORKING, DIVISION STREET, HARD TIMES, THE GOOD WAR
A professional and provocative inspection of a terrible problem. Yet the film manages to shed light and a ray of hope into the drug scene. Methadone is not shocking, but an arresting, sobering view of a still unconquered scourge.NEW YORK TIMES
It’s been a long time since we’ve reviewed a drug film and an eternity since we’ve seen one as good as this…As one person in the film puts it, “America doesn’t have a drug culture, it is a drug culture.”HOSPITAL AND COMMUNITY PSYCHIATRY
A devastating indictment of methadone programs….marshals an impressive amount of evidence which suggests that methadone is at best ineffective and at worst dangerous… It conveys an impressive amount of information about a complex subject in a direct and economical way… invaluable not only for drug users, health workers and community groups, but for anyone concerned with the methadone pacification program.Peter Biskind, JUMP CUT »Read full review
There are all kinds of people who I think will want to see this film…just about anybody who can take a film that teaches a little, hurts a little and finally leaves you feeling a whole lot stronger than you were before you saw it.Barbara Ehrenreich, author THE AMERICAN HEALTH EMPIRE, NICKELED AND DIMED
What makes this film so good is that it has no pretenses about itself or the people who populate it. It is not a Save Our Youth film, or a scare film, or a film about Warning Signs of Drug Abuse. It’s people who are caught in a dilemma of addiction and the equally important problem of the quality of the people who are to help the addicted.Gage Smith, Stamford Public Library»Read Jump Cut review from 1975