METHADONE SUPPLY FOR ADDICTS MAY BE CUT

College Of Pharmacists Tries To Shut Down Bulk Supplier

Recovering drug addicts across the province may find access to
methadone more difficult, as the Ontario College of Pharmacists tries
to shut down a bulk supplier by March 13.

The Ontario Addiction Treatment Centres, which operates 25 methadone
clinics, including one in Sault Ste. Marie on Queen Street East, vows
to continue supplying clients.

"The supply of methadone is potentially affected unless the
bureaucrats make some imminent changes," said Dr. Jeff Daiter, OATC
chief medical director. "I'm working day and night to make sure our
patients come out first. But the various levels of government and
colleges are threatening that model, making it very difficult."

The College of Pharmacists last week ordered a Kitchener-based
pharmacy to stop shipping the potentially lethal drug to OATC clinics
by March 13.

The college accuses Wing and Susan Wong of breaching safety rules
that all drugs must be dispensed to patients in person by licensed pharmacists.

Methadone is a synthetic narcotic usually taken in liquid form used
to wean addicts off heroin and other opiate-based painkillers such as
morphine and derivatives such as OxyContin.

An Ottawa man died last year when a staffer at an OATC clinic
accidentally gave him another client's dose, which contained 10 times
the amount he could handle.

Daiter, who opened the Sault office in late 2003, said all clinics
are staffed by "regulated health practitioners," and methadone is
administered by registered nurses.

He said the regulatory body "has no real foundation" for suspending the Wongs.

"Why is any one health practitioner any more capable of watching
someone drink a dose of methadone?"

The Wongs operate two pharmacies that supply OATC's 4,000 patients,
including approximately 150 in the Sault.

Daiter "couldn't develop a relationship" with any local pharmacist to
fill methadone prescriptions, he said.

Methadone is taken daily, often for two years or more.

"If I turn around tomorrow and say to any Sault Ste. Marie pharmacy,
Will you accept 150 people in your store tomorrow, 150 drug addicts,'
most pharmacists would not like that . . . They're afraid of the
drug-using population, that might rob or steal or create terror on
their retail storefront."

Besides having access to doctors to write prescriptions, OATC offers
registered nurses and therapists as part of its clinics.

The social benefits of the clinic are immeasurable, Daiter said.

"Treated drug addiction costs taxpayers of this province one-tenth of
what untreated drug addiction costs, in terms of victimization,
incarceration, criminalization and so on."

Sault Ste. Marie has another methadone program, through Algoma Health
Unit, that opened up in October 2003 a few weeks before OATC set up shop.

But AHU's East Street Community, Alcohol and Drug Assessment program
has resources for only about 30 clients and is currently "pretty much
at the max" with 36, said program director Elizabeth Larocque.

Unlike OATC, AHU's clients use a local pharmacy and "won't be
affected at all," Larocque said.

With files from Canadian Press