CHALLENGE TO DRUG CLINIC MAY MAKE LAW

Federal Court Case Is Winding Down

Four years after the opening of a methadone clinic in Pikesville
prompted protests by residents, fines from Baltimore County officials
and swift legislation aimed at shutting it down, the two sides are
continuing their argument before jurors in a trial nearing its end in
federal court.

The result of the trial could force a change in Baltimore County and,
legal experts and drug treatment advocates say, send a signal to other
local governments that they, too, need to modify zoning laws for
rehabilitation programs.

Catherine H. O'Neill, senior vice president of the Legal Action Center
in New York, said news about court rulings in cases that deal with
government entities travels quickly.

"It's that kind of influence that is likely to effect change in
practices by zoning authorities around the country," she said.

Other policymakers monitoring the case, which could go to the jury as
early as today, include Robert Lubran, director of development of
pharmacological therapies at the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. He described the case as a legal challenge to the "NIMBY" -
as in Not In My Backyard - syndrome.

"These are important cases," he said. "One of the problems is that
they don't happen often enough."

He added that several local governments across the country have
changed their zoning laws as a result of lawsuits so that they don't
single out drug treatment programs.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, also seeing a
principle at stake, has joined in the lawsuit by A Helping Hand LLC
against Baltimore County.

The suit claims that a 2002 county zoning law prohibiting
state-licensed facilities, including methadone treatment centers, from
opening within 750 feet of homes is discriminatory. Lawyers for the
clinic have argued that the county law violates the U.S. Americans
with Disabilities Act.

Baltimore County attorneys have argued during the three-week trial
that officials weren't trying to discriminate against drug addicts,
especially those seeking treatment. The county was, the lawyers argue,
simply employing zoning law to keep certain types of businesses out of
neighborhoods, much the way the county prohibits factories and other
companies from being located too close to homes.

They've pointed out that methadone clinics are permitted in areas
zoned for manufacturing, and that the 2002 law doesn't single out drug
treatment facilities, but applies to all state-licensed medical
facilities, including kidney dialysis offices.

"I think the key to this case is that there's a big difference between
not thinking highly of someone and discriminating against them because
of an opiate addiction," Jeffrey G. Cook, a county attorney, argued in
court last week.

A Helping Hand is the only private, for-profit methadone treatment
facility in Baltimore County. Another methadone clinic, a
public-private hybrid, is in an industrial park in Timonium.

The Pikesville clinic is located in a two-story brick building a few
blocks from Reisterstown Road. A partially cracking, 3-foot concrete
wall separates the clinic's parking lot from about a dozen homes in
the Ralston neighborhood, most with flower beds and covered front porches.

Neighbors say they sometimes hear noise from the clinic's clients and
see them urinate and vomit on the parking lot.

"I don't think anyone would want this in their neighborhood," said Jim
Tracey, who lives in the house closest to the clinic. "It's the vulgar
talk, the trash, the public urination, the traffic, the disrespect for
me and for my property."

His wife, Annette Tracey, who testified for the county last week, said
she also objects to the ACLU's involvement and county taxpayers having
to cover the legal costs from the lawsuit. "Why are the clinic's
rights more important than mine?" she said.

But A Helping Hand clients say that the clinic is a safe, unobtrusive
operation. A security guard inside watches over the clients' comings
and goings, they say.

"There aren't people hanging out or people outside selling their
take-homes," said one Catonsville man, referring to doses that clinics
give to some patients so that they don't have to come to the clinic
each day. He asked not to be identified, fearing stigma over his treatment.

The dispute isn't the first methadone-related issue for Baltimore
County.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, clinics proposed in
Randallstown, Catonsville and White Marsh - all of which were opposed
by residents - never opened. Community uproar in Dundalk prompted a
clinic to close after five days.

Several lawsuits were filed. And U.S. District Judge Catherine C.
Blake - who is presiding over the current trial - struck down county
laws in 2000 and in 2002, ruling that they violated the ADA because
they were stricter about methadone clinics than other similar medical
practices.

Pikesville residents were upset initially at the prospect of A Helping
Hand opening, along with another methadone clinic less than half a
mile away, saying they feared crime would increase and that other
businesses would suffer.

"We didn't want Reisterstown Road to become known as Rehab Road," says
Alan P. Zuckerberg, former president of the Pikesville-Greenspring
Community Coalition. "No one is saying that people don't need
treatment. It's a question of balancing convenience of a business
against the concerns of a community."

County officials fined A Helping Hand's owner, Joel Prell, $10,800 for
operating illegally, contending that he had received no clients before
the 2002 law took effect and therefore could not be considered an
existing clinic.

Prell and the operators of the other clinic that planned to open,
Success Through Acceptable Rehabilitative Treatment (START), then
filed their lawsuit. Last year, the operators of START, which never
opened, settled with the county out of court.

Lawsuits are not unusual in such cases, according to drug-policy and
legal experts. Generally, they say, the federal courts have favored
the arguments made by clinics that say zoning laws are sometimes
created to stop them from opening.

O'Neill, with the Legal Action Center, said federal courts have
consistently ruled that the ADA applies to zoning authorities and that
those in drug treatment are a protected class under the statute.

David Rosenbloom, director of Join Together, a treatment advocacy
group at Boston University's School of Public Health, said lawsuits
would be "even more frequent if methadone clinics didn't go out of
their way to locate in places that are inconvenient to their clients
but that won't generate community hostility."

He said neighbors' concerns about loitering and trash are legitimate
and should be addressed but should not prevent a clinic from operating.

Baltimore County police said that since January, there have been five
calls for officers at A Helping Hand's address on Slade Avenue,
including reports of destruction of property and a
disturbance.

Lorna Diaz, president of the Ralston Neighborhood Community
Association, agrees that the clinic hasn't prompted any crime waves.

"I don't think it's as bad as people thought it would be," she said.
"But we still don't necessarily want it in the neighborhood. It
belongs somewhere else."