VARNEY WRONG ABOUT METHADONE

Re. "Frontier Health CEO Questions Methadone Uses" Oct. 3, for Mr.
Varney to try and differentiate between heroin addiction and
prescription opiate addiction and to somehow trivialize the pain pill
addiction problem in the region shows he is out of touch with the
devastation pain pill addiction has caused families.

His assessment that methadone somehow is OK for the treatment of
heroin addiction but not for prescription opiate addiction goes
against every bit of evidence out there. Medical professionals widely
agree that treating prescription opiate-addicted patients is, in many
cases, a tougher job and requires even more extensive therapy and
longer times in treatment than treating heroin-addicted patients,
simply because of the purity of the opiate that is introduced into the
body.

This is realized by medical and psychiatric professionals that work in
all facets of addiction treatment, and Mr. Varney is misrepresenting
the facts by saying different. He states, "I've not been able to find
any studies that really demonstrate success with prescription
drug-dependent people." If this is the case, then Mr. Varney hasn't
been looking very hard. He could start by reading the 1997 Consensus
Study done by the National Institute of Health, which states that
methadone is the gold standard of all medicinal treatments of opiate
addiction and that methadone maintenance therapy should be made
available to any opiate-addicted patient in the country that requires
it.

Mr. Varney would have you believe that treatment consists only of the
patient going to the clinic, paying $11, getting their dose, and
leaving. This couldn't be further from the truth. There are strict
guidelines that the clinics must operate under that include frequent
and random drug screens for all patients, individual, group, and
family counseling, induction and yearly physical examinations, etc.
Methadone clinics are accredited by the same government certified
agencies that give Frontier Health their accreditation. I will put the
success of patients that remain in treatment for one year or more at
any clinic in the state with those of patients who use the "cold
turkey," 12-step method that Mr. Varney swears by.

Charles Kitts Jr.

Bluefield, Va.