SIMPLER SOLUTION

Methadone Clinics Zoning Control a Regulation That Won't Work, Isn't
Needed

City councillors who are getting complaints about downtown methadone
clinics should realize that changing zoning bylaws isn't a solution.

In fact, it appears the councillor most concerned about the treatment
clinics understands that zoning is the wrong approach -but is
reluctant to accept it.

Coun. Dean Pappas said Monday night that he isn't looking to develop a
separate zoning class for clinics where people addicted to heroin or
to powerful opiate-based prescription drugs like Oxycontin and
Percocet get counselling and daily doses of methadone.

Methadone kills the desire for an opiate "high" and can allow addicts
to live a normal life while attempting to get off drugs altogether.

At Pappas's suggestion, council asked city planners to do a report on
the clinics and their regulation last February. The report was
delivered Monday. It identifies four existing methadone sites -three
downtown and one just south of Hunter Street East in Ashburnham Ward.

Pappas told council most of the complaints he's received are from
businesses and apartment tenants near a clinic on Charlotte Street
just east of Aylmer Street.

"There's foul language that kind of floats up to their windows. That's
kind of the distilled concerns that I've got from them," Pappas said.

Presumably there are some other worries. As Coun. Henry Clarke pointed
out, methadone and drug use in general are a source of uneasiness. The
fear, a valid one, is that drug addicts need money and get it by
breaking into homes and businesses and mugging people.

However, research and actual practice over the past two decades
indicate that what is known as MMT (methadone maintenance therapy)
reduces the likelihood that addicts will be out committing crimes to
pay for street drugs.

A report ordered by the Ontario government and released last year
found that 16,400 patients were on the program in 2006. The Methadone
Maintenance Treatment Practises Task Force Report also stated that the
program costs OHIP $90 million annually while reducing the "personal
and social" costs of drug addiction by an estimated $600 million.

But how well MMT does or doesn't work as a treatment is not the issue
city council is considering. Pappas appears to want more control over
where clinics locate and is looking at zoning regulations as a way to
get it.

One option would be to create a separate category just for methadone
clinics, which are now treated like any other medical office. Oshawa
went that route after its first clinic opened downtown. Its policy
effectively prevents any other methadone clinic from opening downtown
unless the existing one closes -but the rest of the city is fair game.

According to the staff report, Oshawa is the only Ontario city that
segregates MMT clinics in its zoning bylaw.

A similar approach here would limit downtown clinics to the four
existing ones but couldn't be used to force any of them to close. That
wouldn't solve the current concerns.

However, Pappas has said methadone clinics are necessary and effective
and he doesn't want to single them out by creating a separate, more
restrictive zoning category.

That would leave a second option of putting tighter controls on all
medical and dental clinics. Right now they are a permitted use in the
standard downtown commercial zoning. As a result, doctors or dentists
who want to open a clinic don't have to go through the process of
applying for permission.

That policy has two benefits. It encourages clinics to locate
downtown, in turn making the area a more attractive place to live and
work; and it helps smooth the way for new doctors to locate here.
Changing it in an ineffective attempt to deal with the methadone issue
would be foolish.

Methadone clinics can be annoying but are ultimately beneficial. The
city can deal with noise or nuisance concerns by talking to the owners
about keeping their clients in check. There is no need to develop a
complex regulation scheme that won't do any good.