CLINIC DISPUTES CRITICISM FROM DA

A Westbrook methadone clinic denied on Friday that a woman who was
convicted of operating under the influence of the heroin substitute was a
patient at the clinic when she was arrested last year.

Jordan Levasseur was not a patient at CAP Quality Care on May 10, 2002,
when she was pulled over on Interstate 95 for driving erratically, said
Stephen Cotreau, the clinic's director.

Cotreau said Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson's
criticism of the clinic was unfounded and misguided.

In her defense against the charge, Levasseur said she had recently been to
the methadone clinic and had not been warned that she should not drive
after receiving treatment.

Anderson took the clinic to task in a statement issued Thursday, saying it
had provided an excessive dose of methadone and should have warned its
patients not to drive when taking the medication.

Anderson suggested that the clinic was in part responsible for Levasseur's
impaired driving and said the clinic's "fatal single- mindedness" put the
community at risk.

But Cotreau said Anderson's statements were inaccurate and showed an
unfortunate ignorance about methadone treatment.

"Numerous epidemiological studies have confirmed that methadone does not
impair driving skills and that methadone patients are not involved in
driving accidents at greater rates than the general public," he said in a
written statement.

He cited a report by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which
states that methadone, used appropriately, does not interfere with driving
or other activities.

Cotreau also noted that methadone takes hours to fully affect a person, and
that someone who has just left a clinic would exhibit no effects.

Anderson could not be reached for a response but issued a statement Friday
evening saying Levasseur had a document with CAP Quality Care letterhead,
tested positive for methadone, and exhibited systems consistent with an
improper dose of methadone.

Methadone is a synthetic product that stifles a heroin addict's craving for
the drug.

Methadone clinics in general, and CAP Quality Care specifically, have been
criticized by some law enforcement officials because of a spike in the
number of overdose deaths last year. CAP Quality Care has employed
treatment methods that use higher methadone doses in some cases than are
typically prescribed by other clinics.

Methadone was cited in several of Portland's record 28 accidental drug
overdoses last year. Authorities say the methadone has often been diverted
from patients who have taken it home to use on days when they don't go to
the clinic.

Clinic supporters say that a methadone maintenance program allows former
addicts to function normally, avoiding the descent into crime, despair and
eventually death that typically accompanies unchecked heroin addiction.

"If we are going to address the disturbing and complex issue of drug
addiction in our society, we need to do it with facts - not with political
posturing and scare tactics that only lead to dangerous misperceptions
about this issue," Cotreau said.