TWO METHADONE CLINICS PROPOSED FOR LOWCOUNTRY

To comment
Comments on either application can be made to:
S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, Division of Planning
and Certificate of Need, Attn: Albert Whiteside, 2600 Bull St., Columbia, SC
29910.

Daily trips to Charleston or Savannah could end soon for recovering
drug abusers taking methadone to break the habit. Two methadone
clinics have been proposed for Beaufort and Jasper counties, state
officials say.

Methadone is a drug given to recovering opiate addicts to break their
dependency on substances such as heroin, morphine, OxyContin and other
opioid drugs.

The treatment eliminates the withdrawal symptoms for between 24 and 36
hours when given daily, according to the federal Office of National
Drug Control Policy.

State officials don't know how many people need the service. But both
of the local clinic applications

said the facilities were expected to serve between 100 and 150
patients by the end of the first year of operation. The clinic
proposed by Choices Inc., a Pennsylvania-based for-profit company,
would be in Sheridan Park off U.S. 278 in greater Bluffton. The clinic
proposed by Recovery Concepts, a for-profit group run by doctors and
pharmacists from South Carolina, would be in an office complex on
Boardwalk Drive off of S.C. 170 in Jasper County.

Albert Whiteside, director of the state Department of Health and
Environmental Control's Division of Planning and Certificate of Need,
which issues permits for metha-done clinics, said he thought the state
would approve only one of the clinics because the number of methadone
users in the area isn't known. He said the closest daily methadone
treatment centers were in Charleston and Savannah. South Carolina
officials don't know how many state residents travel to Savannah for
treatment.

Dr. William M. Scott III, a medical director for methadone clinics in
Anderson and Greenville and a member of the group seeking to open the
clinic off S.C. 170, said the real need in the area stems from
prescription drug users, not heroin users. He said while he doesn't
have solid numbers, the population growth in the area leads the group
to believe there is a need for a clinic. The group hopes to get
approval from the state and open the clinic in the fall.

"It's hard to know the real need because it's so clandestine," Scott
said. "We need to look at this not as .... 'these are bad people.'
These are people with a medical addiction."

He said most insurance companies don't cover methadone treatment,
which runs about $300 a month. But insurance does cover several other
medications the clinic would use to treat addicts, such as
Buprenorphine.

Representatives from the proposed clinic in greater Bluffton couldn't
be reached for comment Friday.

Whiteside said based on the numbers from the Charleston area clinics
about a half-dozen Beaufort County residents travel to Charles-ton to
get daily doses of methadone. Officials with the only methadone clinic
in Savannah said Thursday they typically have about 24 patients from
Beaufort County each day.

As of December 2003, about 2,200 people in South Carolina were
receiving treatment from methadone clinics, according to state statistics.

Bud Boyne, executive director of the Beaufort County Alcohol and Drug
Abuse Department, said the agency gets about six calls a year from
people looking for methadone treatment. But he said that number may be
low because people know the department doesn't provide methadone treatment.

"There may be a whole population out there that are very much aware of
the fact that we don't provide methadone maintenance, so they may go
to Savannah or some other place," Boyne said. "That's a guess now."

Boyne said the main drugs abused in Beaufort County are alcohol,
marijuana and crack cocaine.

Nine methadone clinics are permitted and operating in South Carolina: two
each in Charleston and Greenville, and one each in Columbia, West Columbia,
Ander-son, Spartanburg and Myrtle Beach.