This thesis discusses the attitudes versus methadone assisted rehabilitation ad modum Dole Nyswander in Sweden during the period 1972-2004. This is done by means of a Foucault inspired discourse analysis applied on the directions issued by the Board of Health and Social Affairs. The context in which these directions were created is also described, in which scientific achievements on methadone treatments during the period, and the main actors struggling to establish and define the discourse on narcotics and Narcomania, are juxtaposed to the effects of the work of the Board. It is stated that the directions were largely affected not by scientific results and knowledge on methadone, but by the symbolic connotations of narcotics in Sweden established in the discourse already in the mid 1960´s. Also during the end of the studied period, after the occurence of AIDS had begun making methadone more broadly accepted, the findings of this thesis showed that the legacy of the 1970´s symtomtheory and its severe antagonism against methadone, was still present, in effect, in the discourse around methadone and subutex assisted rehabilitation, and so in the directions issued by the Board of Health and Social Affairs..

The purpose of this study was to examine the controversy surrounding the Swedish methadone assisted rehabilitation program over time. Which course has the Swedish methadone assisted rehabilitation program, and the controversy surrounding it, taken since the start? Which arguments have been for and which have been against a methadone assisted rehabilitation program in Sweden, and what are these arguments based on? We chose to write this thesis as a literature study to get a broad and in depth picture of the development of the program in Sweden. In our analysis we used social constructionism and a medical aspect on substance abuse as theories.It is clear that it has been, and still are, differences in opinions when it comes to the effects of the program. As early as in the 1980's the methadone assisted rehabilitation program was scientifically proved effective and approved by the Swedish Board of Health and Social Affairs.