Pubdate: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 Source: Olympian, The (WA) Copyright: 2002, The Olympian Contact: http://www.theolympian.com/forms/lettrfrm.shtml Website: http://www.theolympian.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/319 Author: Lorrine Thompson, The Olympian Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction) CLINIC TO HELP OPIATE ADDICTS OPENS Thurston County Treatment Center Uses Methadone To Battle Drugs After years of tracking growing heroin use in South Sound, health officials opened a methadone treatment clinic this week to provide a new option for battling opiate addiction and its impacts. The clinic can serve up to 350 people, using methadone medication and counseling to treat drug addiction. County health officials hope the treatment availability will not only help addicts escape heroin, but will reduce crime and the spread of HIV and hepatitis in South Sound. Thurston is the first Washington county in 28 years to add new methadone treatment services, said Erik Landaas, program coordinator for the county health department's chemical dependency program. "So this is a really big deal," Landaas said. "We've recognized it as a need in the community for quite a long time," he said. Patient visits to the county health department for heroin detox services grew from 96 in 1997 to 253 visits in 2000. In 2001, for the first time, heroin addicts outnumbered alcoholics admitted for in-patient treatment at the Providence St. Peter Chemical Dependency Center. Needle exchanges in the county grew from about 160,000 three years ago to a projected 400,000 this year, said Pawnee Brown, an outreach worker for the county health department. "We're seeing the trends. They're all pretty obvious," Landaas said. Chemical dependency workers also saw that regular detox services weren't working with heroin addicts -- the withdrawal symptoms were too severe, and the addictions were often strongly connected to personal problems that needed addressing. Methadone has been a scientifically proven, if controversial, way to treat opiate addiction for decades. Though it is an opiate itself, when carefully regulated, methadone provides no "high" and almost no side effects, so addicts can get back to normal life and can focus on their emotions and their health. When a new state law and new funding in 2001 opened a door to additional methadone clinics, Thurston County officials like Landaas and Donna Bosworth, manager of the chemical dependency program, jumped at the opportunity. "It's our job to say, here's an emerging problem. We need to address it rather than wait 10 years and have people say, 'Why didn't you do something?' " Landaas said. The clinic staff includes a medical director, nurse practitioners and physician assistants, two counselors, a dispensary manager and dispensary technicians, said Ron Jackson, director of the new clinic. Jackson has also directed Evergreen Treatment Services, a methadone program in King County, for more than 20 years. Evergreen was awarded a contract with the county and state to provide methadone treatment in South Sound. The clinic will operate five days a week and will be open a short time Saturday just for dispensing medication. Patients must have thorough health exams and two-hour psycho-social evaluations by counselors, including "addiction severity index" tests. The physical and mental health evaluations will help establish medication dosages and counseling requirements, Jackson said. Methadone doses are administered only at the clinic, and witnessed by health workers, except for one dose a week that is taken home. Patients who have been in treatment for longer periods and are showing stability and progress may earn the ability to have more take-home doses, Jackson said. All patients must have at least one counseling session a week for the first three months, then their progress will be evaluated and counseling plans may be adjusted, he said. Patients will also be given random urine tests throughout their treatment. "A lot of people think methadone treatment is just medication," Jackson said. "That would be like giving a diabetic insulin, but never counseling him on the lifestyle changes he needs to stay alive." The clinic is in a small business park off Martin Way in the Lacey area, though out of view of the busy road. Businesses in the building were not notified of the clinic, said Matt Colbert, assistant manager of Tacoma Screw Products, a large store in the building. "The only concern I have is that people would hang around," Colbert said. That wouldn't be good for business, he said. "People need their help, and if it's working, then things should be OK," he said. "We just hope it works the way it's supposed to." The clinic has a strict policy against patients loitering in the area, Jackson said. It's not good for the patients or the clinic, he said. Brown said he is relieved and excited to have the methadone clinic finally open. He has placed dozens of people on a waiting list for the clinic after they asked for his help. "It will give them some direction. They can feel good about themselves and be productive again," said Brown, a recovering addict himself. Addicts feel isolated and unwanted by society, he said, and spend their days in a desperate search for drugs or money to get drugs. And they hate it, he said. "Imagine what that's like, seven days a week." But withdrawal symptoms are so painful -- like continual labor pains or a terrible flu, with cramps and nausea and worse -- and their lives and support systems are so unstable, that quitting without help is almost impossible for many. This clinic will give many of them hope, and a chance, he said. "They're human beings, just like us. People say that they're just drug addicts, but they have families and jobs and they want to be productive," he said. "I'm very excited about Evergreen being here. " Clinic Opens - - What: A new methadone or opiate substitution clinic for treatment of addiction to heroin or other opiates, such as OxyContin. - - Where: 6700 Martin Way E., Suite 117, in the Lacey area. - - Hours: Open 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Saturday. - - Cost: A little more than $10 a day for medication and counseling services. Medicaid and many insurance plans accepted, or patients can pay privately. - - How to qualify: Patients must meet diagnosable guidelines for heroin or other opiate dependence. No requirements based on place of residence or income. - - To contact the clinic: Call 360-413-6910. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk