METHADONE CLINIC DEBATED

To keep himself from snorting lines of heroin, Billy Sharpe queues up
outside the Downtown Dispensary each Wednesday, along with more than
100 others, for his weekly dose of methadone.

"It takes away the addiction feeling of heroin," the 45-year-old said
Wednesday after receiving the prescription. "I haven't used since I
started, nine maybe 10 years."

Methadone is used for pain control and to treat opiate dependence.
Sharpe said the weekly dose of methadone keeps him from turning back
to a life of crime and drugs on the streets of Toronto.

"I wasn't doing just heroin," he said. "When I couldn't get that, I'd
be doing morphine, OxyContin. I was into everything."

Even making a decision to move back to his hometown and get clean
didn't help.

"My boys from Toronto would always bring me enough to get me through
the week," Sharpe said. "I didn't know how to get off it. I was hooked."

The long lineup of those receiving methadone at the Downtown
Dispensary is "scary" for customers and nearby stores are losing
business, said a shop owner who didn't want his name or business to be
published.

"They drive me crazy," the man said. "On Wednesday, everyone is
scared. Nobody is coming in, nobody wants to come in. They're scared."

Employees at Downtown Dispensary declined to comment.

Pete Bowen, chair of the Downtown Orillia Management Board (DOMB), has
written a letter to council looking for a solution to "loitering,"
"foul language" and "volatile" behaviour occurring outside the clinic
on Wednesdays.

The letter was a result of businesses nearby the dispensary asking the
DOMB to help with the situation on their behalf, Bowen said.

"The fact that there is a little bit of a crowd there is kind of
off-putting to some people who may be thinking of going into (nearby
businesses) and they choose not too," he said. "I think it is a
hindrance to the neighbouring businesses."

Coun. Ralph Cipolla agrees that the Mississaga Street location isn't
ideal for a methadone clinic.

"Either we need some kind of security control around the area, or move
it to, in my opinion, to an industrial area," he said. "Downtown is
not the place for it."

But because the Downtown Dispensary is a privately-owned business,
there is little the city can do to have the clinic moved, Mayor Ron
Stevens said.

To prescribe methadone for analgesia or for the treatment of opioid
dependence, physicians must be exempted under Section 56 of the
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, states Health Canada's website.

"I don't see where we can have anything to do with them moving out of
there," Stevens said.

"The province gives this pharmacist the right to (administer
methadone.) I don't see how we can force that issue unless the
province is willing to back that up."

At Monday's council meeting, it was recommended that the DOMB letter
be referred to the next Orillia Police Services Board meeting, Coun.
Joe Fecht noted on Wednesday.

"I am hoping the police can provide some presence," he said. "So if
there are fights and those kinds of things, or if people are being
very boisterous, that gets toned down a bit, so that it's less
disruptive for the community down in that area and the businesses."