The rate of fatal overdoses attributed to methadone use increased faster than overdoses involving any other drug between 1999 and 2004, according to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

USA Today reported Feb. 13 that fatal methadone overdoses in 2004, which totaled 3,849, rose 390 percent from 1999. Almost 13 percent of all overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2004 involved methadone, the NCHS report said, up from 4 percent in 1999.

The trend is partly due to the fact that more doctors are prescribing methadone as a painkiller, seeing it as a more affordable alternative to drugs like OxyContin. Like OxyContin and Vicodin, methadone also has a high potential for abuse. Each dose of methadone costs only a few cents, although it can fetch $20 per pill on the street.

Most people who suffer fatal methadone overdoses are drug addicts, according to Nicholas Reuter, a senior public health analyst at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Methadone also is a tricky drug to manage even when legally prescribed as a pain medication, warned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last fall. "Methadone may build up in the body to a toxic level if it is taken too often, if the amount taken is too high, or if it is taken with certain other medications," the FDA said.