DRUG CLINIC PROPOSES NEW HEROIN TREATMENT

Addiction Services Wantscounty To Fund LAAM Program

Every day, Frank McGloin's patients -- many wearing business suits and
work uniforms -- drive along a wooded road and past a group of
Columbia's tract homes to a treatment center where they are
desperately seeking help to save their lives.

"Most of them look like you and me, [except] their faces will show
distress," said McGloin, director of Howard County's Addiction
Services Center.

But the county doesn't offer the treatment they need, so they usually
go to another county or, more likely, go back to their addiction.

McGloin said he wants to change that by introducing a LAAM program to
the county, one of the nation's newest drug treatments for heroin. He
says he realizes that some neighbors might worry about how the program
would affect the community.

But considering the area's skyrocketing heroin use, he worries what
will happen without it, he said.

"I think a pretty typical image is that [addicts] look like bums and
that they are going to hurt you," McGloin said. "But many go to work
just like anyone else."

Similar to methadone, LAAM -- levo-alpha-acetylmethadol -- is taken
three times a week by addicts. Methadone requires daily doses. Two
private clinics in Ellicott City offer methadone treatment. Users of
either medication receive their treatment at a clinic.

"It is a man-made painkiller," said Todd Rosendale, chief of policy
and program development at the state's Alcohol and Drug Abuse Agency.
"It stops withdrawal and the effects of withdrawal."

LAAM was developed as a painkiller in 1948, but it was not until 1969
that researchers -- including many in Baltimore -- began to look at
LAAM as a drug treatment. It was approved as a treatment for heroin
addiction in July 1983.

Under the proposed program, a van would visit the clinic in the Rivers
Corporate Center in Columbia two or three times a week to treat
patients. McGloin says he expects the program to treat about 65 addicts.

Howard County police officials say heroin use has been a rapidly
growing problem, especially in the past two years. That's when they
believe drug sellers began trying to get more people addicted to the
drug by distributing heroin with 70 percent purity. In the next three
years, officials believe, sellers will drop purity levels to 2 percent
or 3 percent, which is much cheaper to produce.

"The profits will go through the roof," said Lt. Keith Lessner.
"People will have to buy the drug just so they won't get sick."

A growing problem McGloin said that two years ago his clinic saw about
two heroin-addicted patients a week. Now it sees up to 12. Statewide,
heroin use has jumped 25 percent since 1992, from 42,000 to 56,000.

The county "is not in this by themselves," Lessner
said.

Health Department officials began to consider introducing LAAM in
February after County Executive Charles I. Ecker added $100,000 to the
Health Department's budget. When health officials narrowed their
options on how to spend the surplus, among them were LAAM and
expanding an acupuncture program.

"I think we have to put more money into treatment programs and
education," said Ecker, who supports funding for LAAM. But officials
said they recognize that there also are drawbacks. The treatment has a
high failure rate because many patients do not regularly take the
treatment. Officials also realize there likely will be objections to
bringing the LAAM program to the county.

Drawbacks "Sure, I worry about community reaction, but I worry about
if we don't do anything about it," Ecker said. "I would think we would
have to go out and talk to the community."

Joyce Boyd, head of the county's Health Department, said officials
probably will make a recommendation for the funding by the end of the
month. Any proposal would require approval by the county, state
alcohol and drug abuse officials, and the federal Food and Drug
Administration and Drug Enforcement Administration.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry