Pubdate: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 Source: Bluefield Daily Telegraph (WV) Copyright: 2003 Bluefield Daily Telegraph Contact: http://www.bdtonline.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1483 Author: Associated Press Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) FEDERAL PROSECUTOR SAYS CLINIC WOULD LURE DRUG DEALERS ROANOKE, Va. - A proposed methadone clinic in Roanoke County could entice opportunistic drug dealers to the area, a federal prosecutor said. "There may very well be an increase in crime, and there may very well be an increase in drug trafficking," U.S. Attorney John Brownlee told the county Board of Supervisors, which opposes plans for the methadone clinic. Brownlee said that when he was a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., he saw firsthand that drug dealers often target methadone clinics on the assumption that they can easily tempt recovering addicts into becoming users again. "The drug addicts are vulnerable when they're out there waiting for the clinic to open, because that's where the dealers will go," Brownlee said. He did not dispute the medical effectiveness of methadone, which a Galax drug treatment center wants to make available in the Roanoke Valley for people addicted to opium-based drugs such as OxyContin and heroin. "It's clear that people with addictions need help," he said. "Our animosity and anger should be focused on the drug dealers and not those who are addicted." But after his presentation to the board, Brownlee acknowledged that police say they have not encountered drug dealing problems around southwest Virginia's only other two methadone clinics, in Galax and Tazewell County. He said it's possible that police and clinic officials have worked effectively to prevent possible problems. "It's been our experience, and it's backed up by the literature, that there is no basis in fact for his assertions," Phil Herschman, president of the opiate treatment program division of CRC Health Corp., said in a telephone interview Wednesday. Carlsbad, Calif.-based CRC owns 31 clinics in 11 states, including The Life Center in Galax, which wants to expand to Roanoke County. He said drug-dealing has not been a problem around any of the company's other methadone clinics. Board members have heard from angry residents concerned that the clinic will bring crime, traffic congestion and decreased property values to the area. "You have just reinforced what I already suspected," Supervisor Fuzzy Minnix told Brownlee after his presentation to the board. The Life Center has until Oct. 1 to ask a zoning board to overturn the supervisors' denial of a business license. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin