UC OPENS ADDICTION HEALTH-CARE CLINIC

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - For people grappling with substance abuse, basic
health care can be fraught with worry: over-the-counter cough medicine
can have relapse-triggering amounts of alcohol, and visits to the
dentist are hazardous if they include narcotic painkillers.

A new outpatient clinic at the University of Charleston, likely the
first of its kind in the state, hopes to make those anxious decisions
easier when it opens later this month.

The vision for the free clinic is a one-stop information center for
patients and practitioners, where issues like medication side effects
and appropriate pain treatment for recovering addicts can be addressed.

The latter can be an especially hard question, with doctors worried
about prescribing to addicts and patients resigning themselves to
severe pain to avoid the chance of relapse. The abuse of opioid
painkillers like oxycodone, hydrocodone and methadone, is a nationwide
problem, but is particularly acute in Appalachia.

"It's actually unethical not to treat people appropriately, but the
question is, what's the best treatment for someone with an addiction?"
said Michael O'Neil, the pharmacy professor who will oversee the
clinic and the chairman of the state Controlled Substance Advisory
Board.

After being examined, patients will be given wallet-sized cards
telling them what kind of medication or treatment is appropriate for
certain types of pain, without putting them at risk of slipping back
into addiction.

The clinic will also work with people frustrated by side effects of
prescription medicine, and with those who want to know what types of
drugs are safer for recovering addicts.

O'Neil also sees the clinic as a way to educate physicians, dentists
and other prescribers on some of the best practices for providing
routine medical care to people with addictions.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - For people grappling with substance abuse, basic
health care can be fraught with worry: over-the-counter cough medicine
can have relapse-triggering amounts of alcohol, and visits to the
dentist are hazardous if they include narcotic painkillers.

A new outpatient clinic at the University of Charleston, likely the
first of its kind in the state, hopes to make those anxious decisions
easier when it opens later this month.

The vision for the free clinic is a one-stop information center for
patients and practitioners, where issues like medication side effects
and appropriate pain treatment for recovering addicts can be addressed.

The latter can be an especially hard question, with doctors worried
about prescribing to addicts and patients resigning themselves to
severe pain to avoid the chance of relapse. The abuse of opioid
painkillers like oxycodone, hydrocodone and methadone, is a nationwide
problem, but is particularly acute in Appalachia.

"It's actually unethical not to treat people appropriately, but the
question is, what's the best treatment for someone with an addiction?"
said Michael O'Neil, the pharmacy professor who will oversee the
clinic and the chairman of the state Controlled Substance Advisory
Board.

After being examined, patients will be given wallet-sized cards
telling them what kind of medication or treatment is appropriate for
certain types of pain, without putting them at risk of slipping back
into addiction.

The clinic will also work with people frustrated by side effects of
prescription medicine, and with those who want to know what types of
drugs are safer for recovering addicts.

O'Neil also sees the clinic as a way to educate physicians, dentists
and other prescribers on some of the best practices for providing
routine medical care to people with addictions.

"That's probably one of the biggest problems we have, is lack of
education among providers," O'Neil said. "If you start educating the
physicians and the dentists, they can affect a lot of people."

West Virginia has one of the highest highest per capita hydrocodone
distribution in 2006, according the to Drug Enforcement Agency.

were in Appalachia - Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and Alabama.
Tennessee is also in the top five for oxycodone distribution, and
Alabama ranks in the top 10 for methadone prescriptions.

With doctors legitimately prescribing those drugs more, there have
also been rises in illicit use and fatal overdoses.

"There's more of it around," said Anne McGee, director of the Cabell
County Substance Abuse Prevention Partnership. "With kids especially,
it's about access. What's available?"

McGee is organizing the annual Cabell County drug abuse prevention
summit today, which this year will be devoted to prescription drugs.
As a gauge of the issue's gravity, the conference will have not only
local participation, but a scheduled address from Frances Harding,
director of the federal Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.

Last month, the Journal of the American Medical Association published
a study showing that 93 percent of West Virginia's 295 unintentional
overdose deaths in 2006 involved opioid painkillers.