Pubdate: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 Source: Citizens' Voice, The (PA) Copyright: 2002 The Citizens' Voice Contact: http://citizensvoice.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1334 Author: David Hines Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone) NEPA MAY HAVE DRUG PROBLEM, BUT METHADONE WON'T HELP Don't invite more addicts here by offering clinics. Editor: This is in response to the letter to the editor, "Statistics show NEPA needs treatment for heroin addicts." The Wyoming Valley needs more of the modernization some larger metropolitan areas such as New York have, but one of the things we don't need is methadone clinics. Methadone is simply the substitution of the use of one drug for another. We do not need further incentive for drug addicts to locate to our area. Drug addicts are not "victims" who deserve "sympathy;" they are criminals plain and simple who are disruptive to themselves, their families and their community. We do have a drug problem here, but the solution is not to invite more addicts in by offering clinics which will devalue and disrupt neighborhoods and struggling business districts, but rather by investing in programs to discourage drug use in the first place, and to rapidly target and swiftly and severely punish those who sell and use drugs and cause harm to their communities. If the writer is so gung-ho on the benefits of methadone clinics, let her charter a bus, come down here and pick them up and take them back to New York with her. David Hines - --- MAP posted-by: Josh