First In Ongoing Series

MOM FIGHTS FOR AWARENESS

Editor's note: This story is the first in a series on methadone, a
controversial narcotic painkiller often used to treat other addictions.
Pick up the Feb. 25 edition of the Princeton Times for more on methadone
maintenance treatment and the clinics that administer the programs.

PRINCETON - Tammy Lambert, of Princeton, will never see her son grow old.

He died in his sleep a month before his 20th birthday when a lethal
combination of prescription drugs caused him to stop breathing.

Autopsy and investigation reports revealed that Brian Lambert died June 7,
2004 from a fatal dose of methadone, a powerful pain reliever also used to
treat people addicted to heroin and other narcotics. Traces of morphine and
other substances were found in Brian's system, but a toxicology report
concluded that the .50 mg of methadone in his body could "cause fatal
respiratory depression in those lacking significant tolerance ..."

Authorities found no evidence that he had prescriptions for either the
methadone or morphine.

Brian had struggled with drugs for years, Lambert said, beginning around
the age of 16, when he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

"The bipolar really took a lot out of him. He was really down on himself,
like he didn't matter in the world," Lambert said, recalling how her
teenage son tended to be a bit of a loner and appeared to wrestle with low
self-esteem.

"But he was still a good kid. He never hurt nobody," she said.

And, the grieving mother said she believed that after years of battling
various addictions, Brian was "trying to make a change in his life."

He was a new dad, the proud father of a little girl who was just 3 months
old when Brian died. "He loved his daughter," Lambert said. "He was so
excited when that baby was born."

While Lambert said she never condoned her son's drug consumption, she
blamed ignorance and poor professional supervision for the death that
forever altered her family.

"I don't uphold anything he did, and he knew how I felt about drugs,"
Lambert said. "He was dumb about methadone, and that killed him."

Working to pick up the pieces of a life she said was destroyed and caring
for her almost 1-year-old granddaughter, Lambert said she wanted to work to
make sure other parents never had to feel the pain she endured. She pledged
to fight to keep methadone off the streets.

"If I can stop somebody else's child from dying, that's what I want to do,"
she said. "If I can just stop the methadone from coming out of the clinics,
I can live with that. I'll know I tried to do something."

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, methadone has been
used for more than 30 years to treat addiction to opioid drugs. Taken once
a day, the detoxification agent suppresses narcotic withdrawal symptoms for
24 to 36 hours, reducing the craving and needs associated with addiction
without providing the extreme highs that go along with other narcotics.

"Ultimately, the patient remains physically dependent on the opioid, but is
freed from the uncontrolled, compulsive and disruptive behavior" seen in
most addicts, the ONDCP website stated.

Methadone maintenance treatment has gained popularity in recent years,
typically in the form of methadone clinics. The facilities were designed to
provide vigilant supervision for addicts seeking to break the hold of other
narcotics and eventually end addiction to all drugs.

The clinic clients report regularly, often daily, to the providers to
obtain individual doses of the methadone. Over time, those clients
typically build up privileges and may be allowed to take several days'
doses home at once.

"People go to the methadone clinics to come off prescription drugs,"
Princeton Police Department Det. T.A. Bailey said this week. "The clinics
are supposed to provide a step-down process. People usually start off with
a high dosage of methadone, and they're supposed to slowly come off of the
drug completely."

However critics, such as Lambert and some law enforcement authorities, have
argued that the clinics don't do enough job to make sure the methadone
doesn't wind up for sale on the streets.

"It should be more regulated," Bailey, who is also a member of the Southern
Regional Drug and Violent Crime Task Force, said.

In many cases, the detective said clinic clients take multiple doses out of
the clinics, a process he said doesn't make sense.

"If they were capable of taking the doses like they were supposed to, they
wouldn't need the methadone clinic anyway," Bailey said. "They're not
reliable people."

Often, he said, the drugs either wind up for sale or are administered
irresponsibly.

As for the dosage supervision, he said clients were often required to bring
the medicine bottles back to the clinic before they could receive another dose.

However, a local officer who makes under-cover drug purchases regularly
said the method wasn't fool-proof. "We've been buying quite a bit on the
street," he said. "I know they're not taking those bottles back, because
I've got them."

Mercer County Sheriff's Deputy G.W. Woods, who is still investigating Brian
Lambert's death, said allowing methadone patients to take their treatments
home was providing alternative, addictive and potentially profitable
substances to "a known drug addict - a person with an admitted problem."

In his opinion, Woods said methadone maintenance treatment was "a legalized
form of drug use."

Tammy Lambert said her life's focus has become coping with the death of her
son and preventing the same outcome for other families and other generations.

"I know I can't stop the methadone, so I want to stop the methadone from
going home and getting into the hands of people who don't know what it's
all about," she said. "I've got to do something to stop my granddaughter
and nieces and nephews from getting ahold of something like it someday.

"I know it won't bring Brian back ... I just want to know I tried."