CLINIC TO HELP OPIATE ADDICTS OPENS

Thurston County Treatment Center Uses Methadone To Battle Drugs

After years of tracking growing heroin use in South Sound, health officials
opened a methadone treatment clinic this week to provide a new option for
battling opiate addiction and its impacts.

The clinic can serve up to 350 people, using methadone medication and
counseling to treat drug addiction.

County health officials hope the treatment availability will not only help
addicts escape heroin, but will reduce crime and the spread of HIV and
hepatitis in South Sound.

Thurston is the first Washington county in 28 years to add new methadone
treatment services, said Erik Landaas, program coordinator for the county
health department's chemical dependency program.

"So this is a really big deal," Landaas said.

"We've recognized it as a need in the community for quite a long time," he
said.

Patient visits to the county health department for heroin detox services
grew from 96 in 1997 to 253 visits in 2000.

In 2001, for the first time, heroin addicts outnumbered alcoholics admitted
for in-patient treatment at the Providence St. Peter Chemical Dependency
Center.

Needle exchanges in the county grew from about 160,000 three years ago to a
projected 400,000 this year, said Pawnee Brown, an outreach worker for the
county health department.

"We're seeing the trends. They're all pretty obvious," Landaas said.

Chemical dependency workers also saw that regular detox services weren't
working with heroin addicts -- the withdrawal symptoms were too severe, and
the addictions were often strongly connected to personal problems that
needed addressing.

Methadone has been a scientifically proven, if controversial, way to treat
opiate addiction for decades.

Though it is an opiate itself, when carefully regulated, methadone provides
no "high" and almost no side effects, so addicts can get back to normal life
and can focus on their emotions and their health.

When a new state law and new funding in 2001 opened a door to additional
methadone clinics, Thurston County officials like Landaas and Donna
Bosworth, manager of the chemical dependency program, jumped at the
opportunity.

"It's our job to say, here's an emerging problem. We need to address it
rather than wait 10 years and have people say, 'Why didn't you do
something?' " Landaas said.

The clinic staff includes a medical director, nurse practitioners and
physician assistants, two counselors, a dispensary manager and dispensary
technicians, said Ron Jackson, director of the new clinic.

Jackson has also directed Evergreen Treatment Services, a methadone program
in King County, for more than 20 years.

Evergreen was awarded a contract with the county and state to provide
methadone treatment in South Sound.

The clinic will operate five days a week and will be open a short time
Saturday just for dispensing medication.

Patients must have thorough health exams and two-hour psycho-social
evaluations by counselors, including "addiction severity index" tests. The
physical and mental health evaluations will help establish medication
dosages and counseling requirements, Jackson said.

Methadone doses are administered only at the clinic, and witnessed by health
workers, except for one dose a week that is taken home.

Patients who have been in treatment for longer periods and are showing
stability and progress may earn the ability to have more take-home doses,
Jackson said.

All patients must have at least one counseling session a week for the first
three months, then their progress will be evaluated and counseling plans may
be adjusted, he said.

Patients will also be given random urine tests throughout their treatment.

"A lot of people think methadone treatment is just medication," Jackson
said. "That would be like giving a diabetic insulin, but never counseling
him on the lifestyle changes he needs to stay alive."

The clinic is in a small business park off Martin Way in the Lacey area,
though out of view of the busy road.

Businesses in the building were not notified of the clinic, said Matt
Colbert, assistant manager of Tacoma Screw Products, a large store in the
building.

"The only concern I have is that people would hang around," Colbert said.

That wouldn't be good for business, he said.

"People need their help, and if it's working, then things should be OK," he
said. "We just hope it works the way it's supposed to."

The clinic has a strict policy against patients loitering in the area,
Jackson said. It's not good for the patients or the clinic, he said.

Brown said he is relieved and excited to have the methadone clinic finally
open.

He has placed dozens of people on a waiting list for the clinic after they
asked for his help.

"It will give them some direction. They can feel good about themselves and
be productive again," said Brown, a recovering addict himself.

Addicts feel isolated and unwanted by society, he said, and spend their days
in a desperate search for drugs or money to get drugs.

And they hate it, he said.

"Imagine what that's like, seven days a week."

But withdrawal symptoms are so painful -- like continual labor pains or a
terrible flu, with cramps and nausea and worse -- and their lives and
support systems are so unstable, that quitting without help is almost
impossible for many.

This clinic will give many of them hope, and a chance, he said.

"They're human beings, just like us. People say that they're just drug
addicts, but they have families and jobs and they want to be productive," he
said.

"I'm very excited about Evergreen being here. "

Clinic Opens

- - What: A new methadone or opiate substitution clinic for treatment
of addiction to heroin or other opiates, such as OxyContin.

- - Where: 6700 Martin Way E., Suite 117, in the Lacey area.

- - Hours: Open 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Saturday.

- - Cost: A little more than $10 a day for medication and counseling
services. Medicaid and many insurance plans accepted, or patients can
pay privately.

- - How to qualify: Patients must meet diagnosable guidelines for heroin
or other opiate dependence. No requirements based on place of
residence or income.

- - To contact the clinic: Call 360-413-6910.