Pubdate: Sat, 25 Jun 2005
Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
Copyright: 2005 Lexington Herald-Leader
Contact:  http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240
Author:  Roger Alford, Associated Press

PROTEST MAY SIGNAL END OF WELCOME FOR METHADONE CLINICS

MIDDLESBORO - Faced with increases in violent crime that came with
widespread drug addiction, some of the hardest hit communities in central
Appalachia wanted help so badly that they embraced even methadone clinics.

No more.

Some 300 people, many carrying anti-methadone placards, protested outside
Middlesboro City Hall last week, signaling what might be an end to the free
pass the clinics have enjoyed in the mountain region since illegal
trafficking in the painkiller OxyContin began wreaking havoc about five
years ago.

Mac Bell, state narcotic authority administrator in the Kentucky Cabinet for
Health and Family Services, said the opposition to the Middlesboro clinic
has been overwhelming.

"This is the first time in my history that we have had such a public outcry,
and I've been doing this for 22 years," he said.

A dose of liquid methadone once a day helps addicts escape their cravings
for illegal drugs and avoid withdrawal symptoms. Although patients do not
get high when they use the drug properly, they do become dependent on it.

Clients pay about $85 a week for methadone, drug screening and counseling at
the clinics. One OxyContin pill purchased on the black market can cost that
much.

For some communities, methadone was a welcome alternative to OxyContin,
which drug addicts crushed and snorted or mixed with water and injected to
get the same kind of euphoric high that heroin brings, thus its nickname,
heroine of the hills.

In the past five years, clinics opened without opposition in five Eastern
Kentucky towns and seven West Virginia towns.

When used for treatment of addiction, methadone can be dispensed only in the
special clinics.

Virginia currently is under a state-imposed moratorium on new methadone
clinics.

Ed Ohlinger, regional director for outpatient services in Virginia for CRC
Health, said some rural residents have to drive up to four hours round trip
to get methadone because their communities don't want such clinics.

Residents in Abingdon, Va., were successful in a fight to keep a methadone
clinic out of their town, and community and political leaders in Dryden,
Va., now are battling a proposed clinic there. Residents in Roanoke, Va.,
and Wheeling, W.Va., fought unsuccessfully to keep clinics out.

"I think with many people there's still misunderstanding," said Merritt
Moore, adult treatment coordinator in the West Virginia Division of
Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. "They don't understand the effectiveness of the
treatment."

The number of methadone clinics has grown nationwide from 775 to 1,100 over
the past 12 years, according to the American Association for the Treatment
of Opioid Dependence in New York. The number of people being treated has
grown from 115,000 to 205,000 over the same period.

Dr. Ronald Dubin, a physician who leads a group involved in the Middlesboro
fight, said he thinks some clinics have opened without opposition because
residents didn't know about them until it was too late.

Barbara Smith, co-owner of the proposed Middlesboro clinic, said it could
initially serve up to 120 clients who would drive in each day to swallow a
liquid dose of methadone. She said these will be people who are trying to
kick their addictions, not drug-crazed criminals who are a danger to the
community.

"The misinformation has escalated into something totally out of hand," she
said. "We're trying to get facts out to the people."

The fact is, Smith said, the clinic is needed to help treat addicts in the
Middlesboro area. Amanda Turner, 26, said she has to drive more than two
hours round trip from Middlesboro to a clinic in Corbin each morning to get
a dose of methadone.

Sherry Turner, the young addict's mother, is one of the strongest supporters
of the clinic, and she has been trying to persuade others to drop the
opposition.

"Methadone seems to be the only thing helping my daughter," she said. "I
would prefer her not to have to take anything, but I'd rather her have
methadone than be out here trying to get drugs off the streets."
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