Changes in attitude toward methadone.

Staff and client attitudes toward heroin users and toward maintenance and abstient clients were assessed in 1970 and again in 1973. On each occasion there was striking agreement between the ratings made by staff and client groups. Abstinent clients were rated by all groups as significantly more effective and more responsible than either maintance clients or heroin users; maintenance clients were rated as more conservative, self-conscious, and self-effacing than were the other groups. While heroin users and abstinent clients were characterized similarly in the two rating periods, raters in the 1973 survey viewed methadone hydrochloride clients as more passive and less inclined to undertake adult responsibilities than was true of raters in the 1970 survey.