Addicts can "kick" habit while asleep.

• Position: Your Life - Use of "Ultrarapid opiate detoxification"

Not including the emotional and psychological costs, the economic expenses of drug and alcohol abuse in the U.S. are estimated to be at least $98,000,000,000 a year. For many who are addicted to heroin, a controversial, but effective, procedure could help them "kick" their habit. Ultrarapid opiate detoxification (UROD) has been used successfully in at least 10,000 cases worldwide. Considered a "critical care" procedure, UROD allows the addict to "go to sleep" under an anestheologist's care, avoid painful withdrawal, and regain consciousness well on the road to recovery. The procedure takes four to six hours, plus 24 hours of hospital monitoring, followed by several months of daily medications. The latter, called antagonists, block narcotics' effects, dramatically reducing users' compulsion to abuse drugs again.

According to research presented by Clifford M. Gevirtz to the American Society of Anesthesiologists, however, UROD can cause drastic physical changes in the patient and should only be done with an anesthesiologist present. Several cases done under lesser standards of care have had disastrous results. "There's routine anesthesia practice--and then there's this procedure, which involves many types of medications not normally used," Gevirtz, an anesthesiologist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, points out. "Only a trained medical...