Driving on methadone

Effects on Driving: The drug manufacturer cautions that methadone may impair the mental and/or physical abilities required for the performance of potentially hazardous tasks, and that the sedative effects of the drug may be enhanced by concurrent use of other CNS depressants, including alcohol. In healthy, non-methadone using volunteers, single doses of methadone will impair driving ability. Numerous European studies of long-term methadone maintenance patients have shown that appropriately administered methadone does not cause significant psychomotor or cognitive impairment when administered regularly and when the subject abstains from all other drugs. However, in the majority of cases, patients did not exhibit stable abstinence from drug use and had an increased occurrence of simultaneous psychiatric/neurotic disorders or personality disturbances which, by themselves, could be a reason to doubt their driving ability. In Germany, the Joint Advisory Council for Traffic Medicine at the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing and the Federal Ministry for Health issued the following recommendation: Heroin addicts treated with methadone are generally not fit to drive; however, these patients may be considered fit to drive if they show a period of methadone substitu­tion for more than a year; stable psychosocial integration; no evidence of the consumption of additional psy­chotropic substances; evidence of a subject’s readiness to feel responsible for himself/herself; therapy compliance; and no evidence of serious personality defects.
from http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/job185drugs/methadone.htm