STATE REGULATORS APPROVE CLINIC

The Roanoke clinic, which should open in November, will dispense daily
doses of methadone along with counseling and other services to addicts.

A controversial methadone clinic slated to open next month in Roanoke
has met the final approval of state regulators.

After visiting the Hershberger Road facility Friday, officials with
the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance
Abuse Services found that all state requirements have been satisfied.

However, the Roanoke Treatment Center must still be inspected by the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Virginia Board of
Pharmacy before it can receive a state license, according to Leslie
Anderson, director of the department's office of licensing.

The DEA and Board of Pharmacy reviews are less extensive than the
state's and could be completed by the end of the month, Anderson said.

"You have to have the state license to have anything else happen, so
that was the most critical," said Joe Pritchard of CRC Health Group,
the company that will operate the clinic.

Pritchard said the clinic should open by mid-November. It will be the
first in the Roanoke Valley to dispense daily doses of methadone along
with counseling and other services to addicts of opium-based drugs
such as heroin and OxyContin.

The first patients will be between 25 and 50 area residents who are
currently driving to a methadone clinic in Galax that is also owned by
CRC, Pritchard said. The clinic is expected to be treating about 150
patients within a year.

Residents of Northwest Roanoke have opposed the operation, saying that
it will breed drug dealing, crime and traffic congestion. Those
concerns are based in part on the fact that methadone is a narcotic
often abused on the street, leading to more than 80 fatal overdoses in
Western Virginia last year.

Although nearly all of the deaths were found by the medical examiner's
office to involve methadone pills prescribed by doctors as a
painkiller - as opposed to the liquid form of the drug dispensed by
drug treatment centers - the clinic has nonetheless been the subject
of petition drives, economic boycotts and other forms of protest.

"There are still concerns in the neighborhood, and we understand
that," Pritchard said. But he said CRC has been working closely with
residents, adjacent business owners and the police to address those
issues.

Jeff Artis, a community activist who has been closely involved in
fighting the clinic, could not be reached for comment Friday.

Earlier this year, CRC purchased another drug treatment company that
had already begun plans for the clinic at 3208 Hershberger Road Northwest.

A city business license issued last October to that company expired at
the end of the year. A new business license has not been granted,
according to Commissioner of the Revenue Sherman Holland.

When CRC tried to renew the business license in February, Pritchard
said, the company was told by Holland's office that the application
would be put on hold until it receives a state license.

Pritchard said state officials agreed Friday to write a letter saying
that the license is all but final, which he plans to present to
Holland's office in order to obtain a business license.

Opponents have held out hope that the city will refuse to renew the
clinic's business license. But because the clinic was found to be in
compliance with the area's zoning a year ago, leading to the issuance
of a certificate of occupancy that remains valid, CRC appears to have
a vested interest in the site, according to city officials.