METHADONE CLINIC REQUEST PULLED

Middlesboro Residents Had Been Set To Take Protest To Frankfort

MIDDLESBORO - Faced with staunch opposition from residents of the
Bell County town, a company has withdrawn its application to open a
methadone clinic in Middlesboro.

Rehabilitation Drug Services sent a letter to that effect yesterday,
said Steve Shannon, director of the Kentucky Division of Mental
Health and Substance Abuse.

After receiving the letter, the State Narcotic Authority canceled a
meeting set for today to consider whether to allow the methadone
clinic to open. Dr. Ronald Dubin, head of Middlesboro Against Drugs,
said he had expected several hundred people opposed to the proposed
clinic to drive to Frankfort to attend the meeting.

In the letter, Barbara Smith, president and general manager of
Rehabilitation Drug Services, requested technical assistance from the
State Narcotic Authority in preparing another application to open a
clinic in Middlesboro.

In addition, Smith asked that the meeting held to consider the
company's next application be private. "The basis of this request is
due to the sensitive nature of the proprietary information contained therein."

Middlesboro residents were upset because the proposed clinic would be
within three blocks of two schools, and because they weren't
initially told about the proposed clinic.

Mac Bell, who oversees methadone clinics for the Kentucky Cabinet for
Health and Family Services, said last month that the level of
opposition to the Middlesboro proposal was unprecedented in the past 20 years.

Dubin said he feared a methadone clinic would make Middlesboro, which
sits just miles from Tennessee and Virginia, a magnet for addicts
from other parts of central Appalachia. Virginia is under a
state-imposed moratorium on new methadone clinics.

When used for treatment of addiction, methadone can be dispensed only
in the special clinics.

A dose once a day from one of the 1,100 clinics now operating in the
United States helps addicts escape their cravings for illegal drugs
and avoid withdrawal symptoms. Although patients do not get high when
they use the drug properly, they do become dependent on it.

Dubin said his organization will oppose any attempt by the company to
open a methadone clinic in Kentucky, and will oppose attempts to
close any meeting in which an application to open a methadone clinic
is being considered.

"It's a public matter, not a private matter," he said.