NEW METHADONE CLINIC SEIZES RICH OPPORTUNITY IN A VACUUM

New Bedford really hasn't come very far since the debate over needle
exchange, when the victorious opponents satisfied their consciences with
the empty promise that they really, really wanted treatment for drug
addicts instead of "free needles." It was a resolution -- New Year's or
otherwise -- that was forgotten almost as soon as the referendum results
were in.

This week Mayor Fred Kalisz was taken by surprise to learn that a new
methadone clinic opened for business -- and we do mean business -- four
months ago in the North End. The Center for Substance Abuse operates the
clinic in a partnership with High Point Treatment Center, which provides
counseling services. Now it is housed in a gray trailer on the waterfront
in the North End; soon it expects to move into the Grinnell Mill building
at 10 Kilburn Ave., where it will enjoy 80,000 square feet of floor space.
We could call it the Methadone Mall.

The take on all this from City Hall is that New Bedford doesn't want any
more methadone clinics because they tend to attract addicts, which is of
course what they are designed to do. New Bedford obviously has enough of a
problem that not one but two clinics can operate quite profitably. At this
point, unless there's something illegal about it, the mayor probably can't
do a whole lot except complain about the new clinic. This one supplements
the methadone already being supplied on Gifford Street by the very troubled
Center for Health and Human Services, which for months has been under
investigation by state and federal authorities.

The clinic supporters point out that these methadone centers don't create
new addicts; they simply tend to the needs of the existing ones.

That's true as far as it goes, but it omits the fact that methadone clinics
don't seem to be giving us any fewer addicts, either. Instead of being
trapped on heroin, addicts are trapped on methadone. And instead of illegal
drug dealers profiting by this scourge, now we have a whole new class of
legal drug dealers profiting by it -- and perpetuating the arrangement.

So what's missing in all of this is what was promised with such passion by
the opponents of needle exchange: treatment that is available and effective
in weaning drug addicts off drugs entirely. Surely we're not going to start
complaining now that this sort of thing is too expensive and unwelcome and
therefore impossible, are we? Surely we aren't going to create an
atmosphere in New Bedford that says to potential drug treatment facilities:
"We don't want you here."

In fact, the reverse needs to be true and City Hall has to get serious
about vastly expanding the treatment options so that entreprenurial
methadone peddlers don't move in and lock up the market. New Bedford needs
to dry up the demand for drug treatment, not supply vendors with a steady
stream of profitable customers that will come to them in perpetuity, the
bills guaranteed to be paid by Uncle Sam. That's just another form of
chemical and government dependence.

When it comes to drug treatment, New Bedford's official policy is in need
of a little rehabilitation of its own. Maybe some of the needle exchange
opponents would like to volunteer some suggestions and we can all take them
as New Year's resolutions.