OFFICIALS OPPOSE METHADONE CLINIC FOR DEKALB

FORT PAYNE - The State Health Planning and Development Agency has received
an application for permission to open a methadone clinic in Fort Payne, but
local officials oppose such a facility.

"We have no need for a methadone clinic in our community," District
Attorney Mike O'Dell said. "A methadone clinic would serve no useful
purpose for our citizens, and could instead be very detrimental to our
efforts to fight drug addiction."

Methadone is a synthetic narcotic that addicts must take daily as a
substitute for heroin, morphine or other opiates. It is not taken as a
treatment for addiction to other drugs.

O'Dell said DeKalb County has a very small population of opiate addicts,
and that a clinic would have to import clients from outside the county to
make it a profitable enterprise.

Mayor Bill Jordan also opposes the proposed clinic for that reason.

"We don't need to be bringing in more drug problems than we have," Jordan
said. "We are preparing a letter of strong opposition to the clinic."

Brenda Heatherly, of the Cullman County Treatment Center, which operates a
methadone clinic in Cullman, is listed as the applicant for the state
certificate of need. Heatherly could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

After Heatherly filed her application, the State Health Planning Agency
notified authorities in DeKalb County and invited their comments. Comments
must be filed by May 31, after which the agency will schedule a public
hearing on the application.

O'Dell cited records from the DeKalb County Court Referral Office that
13,972 drug tests were performed locally in the past year - for every court
in the county, the Department of Human Resources, local employers, doctors,
parents of juveniles and others.

There were 1,343 positive results, just less than 10 percent, and only 163,
just more than 1 percent, of the positives were for opiates. A large number
of the positives for opiates were for prescribed medicines and not
indicative of substance abuse, O'Dell said.

The Court Referral Office placed 175 people in residential treatment
programs in the past year. Only four of them had an opiate dependence, and
none required a detoxification program, he said.

There are already three local outpatient treatment programs for alcohol and
drug abuse, and local doctors would be able to serve the small number who
might require methadone, O'Dell said. There is a methadone clinic as close
as Gadsden.

Methadone provided through a clinic can cost more than $300 a month, while
a month's supply of methadone from a pharmacy, prescribed by a doctor,
would cost about $20, O'Dell said.

Further, methadone has become a drug of abuse and is sold illegally on the
street. A recent report from Kentucky said that methadone was rapidly
replacing OxyContin as the most abused prescription drug.

"Our methamphetamine epidemic is already taxing out law enforcement
resources to capacity," O'Dell said. "I can see no purpose in deliberately
introducing another addictive substance into our community with the
potential that methadone can bring."