(no subject)

[d_aulnoy]

Hey, what's the technical term for methadone? Is it a placebo, a substitute, a ...?

Don't worry, people, I'm not giving up the white horse, I just need a term for the Goblin Market paper.

Comments

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

It's not a placebo. It's an opiate-derivative that acts to quell the physical symptoms of heroin withdrawal without providing the high of heroin (I believe it is possible to get high off of heroin, but you have to use huge quantities, and someone whose system is used to heroin is, I am given to understand, not going to feel a "high"). Substitute might be a better word. Really, it's a medication that treats/prevents withdrawal symptoms.

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

So there's no all-purpose medical term for that class of pharmacutical? I can reference "magical equivalent to methadone" easily enough, but if there's a more concise definition ...

[schrodingersgnu.livejournal.com]

Eh, don't quite understand what you are looking for. Stop using magic makes you see babies crawling in the ceiling, and you need some potion to make the babies go away?

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

Not really. That class of pharmaceutical is just basically pain relief. It's a synthetic, substitute narcotic.

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

I think I know what you're going to use it for re: Goblin Market, by the way, and I'm not sure it works as an analogy without qualifying it, because the thing about methadone is that it really works only as pain/withdrawal symptom relief. The fruit juice on the body of the one sister actually cures the other one in GM, in one dose, no less, whereas methadone needs to be taken regularly and consistently, or the physical withdrawal symptoms will return and be as painful and wretched as ever.

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

No, it's for a modern section - I'm looking at Holly Black's _Valiant_, and she has a really interesting reversal of the original Goblin Market setup, with humans dealing drugs to fairies, and skimming a bit off the top: when their source is cut off, the main protagonist finds that faerie fruit reduces the cravings without providing an identical high. So I guess it's down to "magical methadone", but, damn, is that an unwieldy phrase ...

[blackholly.livejournal.com]

Wah.

Methadone is a synthetic narcotic that acts as a withdrawal suppressant, if any of that language helps.