COMMUNITY OPPOSITION TO METHADONE
It never ends: within 48 hrs opposition against methadone treatment facilities in four widely disparate communities:
BALTIMORE Sun, 30 Aug: "Action halts again on drug center bill
Treatment advocates fear City Council is blocking effort to ease clinic openings";
FORT PAYNE, Alabama, Times-Journal, 31 Aug: "Clinic remains opposed locally";
BLUEFIELD, West Virginia, Bluefield Daily Telegraph,01 Sept: "Right to know: Rule change needed to better inform pub [about proposed methadone clinics]; and
CHERRYFIELD, Maine,(http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=40993),1 Sept"
"Cherryfield Residents Voice Objections To Proposed Methadone Clinic"
So the question is: what, after 40 years of consistently demonstrated effectiveness of methadone maintenance for individual patients and communities, what can be done about this? How can the federal government, that has repeatedly and unambiguously endorsed methadone's effectiveness for decades, turn around public opinion in order to advance its mission of making treatment a reality for a much larger proportion of those who could be benefited? What can the provider organizations (especially the American Association of Treatment of Opioid Dependence - AATOD) do?
Comments/suggestions most welcome!
posted by RGNewman, MD @ 10:37 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Proposed methadone clinic near school
By Katherine Cassidy
Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - Bangor Daily News, BANGOR MAINE
CHERRYFIELD, MAINE - Discovery House, a for-profit drug treatment center based in Rhode Island, plans to locate a new outpatient drug treatment center just one-fifth of a mile from Cherryfield Elementary School.
Blah blah blah blah..........
"In fact, there is a day care next door to Discovery House in South Portland," he said.
According to Google's map service, Discovery House and the Kinder-Play Preschool and Child Center are located less than a half-mile apart on different streets.
"I don't even know where Discovery House is," an employee of Kinder-Play said Tuesday, when asked if the day care was located next door to the facility.
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.......
Jared Mowry of Cherryfield, a father of three boys, is pastor of the Church of the Open Bible in Cherryfield. He has urged members of his congregation to attend this evening's meeting.
"My biggest concern is for the community," Mowry said. "I don't agree with the methadone clinics; it's a poor use of taxpayers' money.
"If they want to bring in an actual, residential rehabilitation place, I'd be in favor of that. But what they're offering is getting them off one drug, for another. [Users] are going from a street drug to a clinical drug."
Rick Tanney of Lubec, a board member of the Washington County Drug Action Team, said he is not bothered by Discovery House locating near Cherryfield Elementary.
"These people, the clients, aren't dangerous," Tanney said. "They are just going to get their medication. And by agreement with Discovery House, they have to leave. They can't hang around.
"I personally don't see a problem with it."
FOR THE WHOLE STORY GO TO:
http://www.bangordailynews.com
Even though our state has just been through a battle over a methadone clinic (which is now opening) our citizens still continue to oppose the placements of these much needed facilities.
The pastor is quoted as saying that methadone clinics are a waste of taxpayer money and he would rather have a rehab? How do these people not KNOW that a rehab has a 5% success rate for opiate addicts?
Better yet, how do these people not realize that not only will some of the patients of this clinic be PARENTS OF CHILDREN THAT GO TO THIS SCHOOL, BUT COULD VERY WELL BE EMPLOYEES OF THE SCHOOL?
We have to start asking ourselves what we consider "successful" in addiction treatment. Is the point to make someone "well" again or is it to make them "drug free" because sometimes it has to be either OR, not both.
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