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Institute threw the full weight of its prestige and influence into the
fray and the treatment advocates won the battle.

Based on the successes of Dole and his associates, methadone
programs were started in Chicago by Dr. Jerome Jaffe and in
Washington D.C. by Dr. Robert DuPont which mirrored and validated
the concept of outpatient treatment of heroin addiction with single
dose, oral methadone.

Politics Meets Methadone

Early in the Nixon Administration, White House staffers were looking
for new opportunities for political success. Some believed that drug
treatment programs, then still in their infancy, might be such an
opportunity. But this ran counter to the general orientation and
convictions of the president. He was being hounded by anti-Vietnam
War protesters; the same hirsute, promiscuous, drug users who would
be the beneficiaries of a policy that was "soft" on drugs and drug
users. That changed suddenly.

In April 1971, two congressmen visited our troops in Vietnam because
they were alarmed by reports from their constituents that heroin abuse
was rampant among the enlisted men stationed there. They returned
with testimony that this was indeed the case. Later evidence indicated
that as many as forty percent of the enlisted men had tried heroin and
one half of them had become addicted.

This was a potential political bombshell. The war was extremely
unpopular and evidence that the young people sent to fight were being
subjected to a new menace would only add fuel to the fire. The
spectre of returning veterans who would end up as addicts, involved in
crime to support their habit, was horrifying. The Department of
Defense had attempted to crack down on the problem but their only
answer was to prosecute offenders, which was slow and ineffective as
a deterrent.

The White House sent for Dr. Jaffe and asked him to evaluate the
problem and suggest a program. He had recently learned of a new