Pubdate: Sun, 25 Jul 2004
Source: Sunday Gazette-Mail (WV)
Copyright: 2004, Sunday Gazette-Mail
Contact:  http://sundaygazettemail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1404
Author: Tara Tuckwiller, Staff Writer

MORATORIUM EXPIRES ON METHADONE CLINICS

7 New Facilities Would Bring W.Va. Total To 15

Seven new methadone clinics are applying to set up shop in West Virginia, 
now that the state's moratorium on methadone clinic applications expired 
last week.

The state Health Care Authority imposed the six-month moratorium to give 
itself a break from methadone hopefuls while regulators write the 
first-ever state rules for the clinics. Those rules won't be ready until 
early next year, said Sheila Kelly of the Department of Health and Human 
Resources.

That would be the earliest that any new clinics could actually open. 
Meanwhile, seven clinics are already selling methadone in West Virginia, 
and an eighth has been approved. Together, they netted more than $4 million 
in pure profit last year - more than half of that at one clinic in Charleston.

- - advertisement-

The proliferation of methadone clinics, which did not exist in West 
Virginia until 2001, was part of what prompted Delegate Marshall Long, 
D-Mercer, to introduce legislation this spring that ultimately required the 
new rules.

Long, a physician, said he and his family have gotten threatening phone 
calls over the legislation.

"I've had some phone calls from people in Virginia about how I'm going to 
cause all these people to be in so much agony, they'll have to go out and 
commit crimes because they won't be able to get their methadone," Long said.

Methadone is supposed to halt drug addicts' craving for opioids, such as 
OxyContin, which are widely abused in Appalachia. West Virginia methadone 
clinics attract clients from surrounding states, such as Ohio, which won't 
allow for-profit methadone clinics at all.

The new West Virginia rules won't outlaw any methadone clinics, but will 
require them to meet certain standards of operation, test their clients for 
drugs, report the number of clients who are eventually weaned from the 
drug, and more. The state will also fine and penalize clinics that don't 
comply.

CRC Health Group Inc., a national methadone chain with six clinics in West 
Virginia (including the Charleston clinic), wants to open four more. The 
state has already approved one for Weirton. Two more, in Mineral and 
Greenbrier counties, were approved in 2001, but they never opened and CRC 
has to reapply. The fourth clinic would be in Mercer County.

Colonial Management Group, another national chain, has applied to open 
clinics in Charleston, Summersville and Morgantown. Valley-Alliance 
Treatment Services Inc. also wants to open a methadone clinic in Morgantown.
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