Mother of Methadone: What Dr. Marie Nyswander's Legacy Can Teach Us About Today's Opioid Overdose Epidemic

Melody Glenn, MD, MFA • Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Psychiatry • Associate Program Director, Addiction Medicine Fellowship • University of Arizona College of Medicine–Tucson

In the 1960's, Dr. Marie Nyswander and her husband co-developed methadone maintenance as a treatment for heroin dependence, an innovation seen by some as just as monumental as the discovery of penicillin. Yet hardly nobody today knows her name, and our country's overdose epidemic has worsened more than Nyswander could have imagined. Why?

Using Nyswander's remarkable life story to propel us forward, Dr. Melody Glenn has written a compelling book about the history of America's failed war on drugs, methadone's link to Nazi Germany and the U.S. Narcotic Farm, the regulation and attacks that hamstringed methadone's potential, and the promise of harm reduction. Please join us in November for a special DURG presentation and conversation with Dr. Glenn about her research for the book and what Marie Nyswander taught her.

Dr. Melody Glenn is the author of "Mother of Methadone," a hybrid memoir/biography published by Beacon Press in July of 2025 that weaves her story of becoming an addiction physician with that of Dr. Marie Nyswander, the radical physician who developed methadone maintenance in the 1960’s. Dr. Glenn used her background as a practicing emergency, addiction, and EMS physician with an MFA in creative writing from Mills College to meld science writing, medical history, and the arts to tell the story of the opioid crisis from a unique perspective.

Her research has been published in medical journals (CHEST, Resuscitation, Annals of Emergency Medicine, Prehospital Emergency Care, Western Journal of Emergency Medicine) and her creative writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Salon, Time, Literary Hub, River Teeth, Mutha Magazine, the Arizona Republic, and the Believer. She receives grant funding from the CDC to improve addiction care in the emergency department and is represented by Ayla Zuraw-Friedland at the Frances Goldin Literary Agency. 

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The UCSF Drug Use Research Group (DURG) is a city-wide seminar attended by faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and other Bay Area investigators centering on persons who use drugs.  Started in 2005 after a friendly debate between an epidemiologist and anthropologist on the merits of quantitative versus qualitative research methods, the DURG monthly seminars provide a community platform for new and established investigators to present their work, explore research questions and methods, and to prepare for grant applications and the dissemination of findings in a supportive environment.  The seminar has been successful in cultivating new collaborations and mentorship and in sustaining an interdisciplinary and interprofessional dialogue between those engaged in basic sciences, epidemiology, clinical, and public health research.  

Our meetings are not recorded or live-streamed. Please contact us if you’d like to present your work or research ideas for friendly consultation and peer review.