METHADONE CLINIC SLOWS PLANS TO OPEN

CRC Health Group Wants To Get More Input From Groups And Residents In The
Neighborhood Surrounding 3208 Hershberger Road N.W.

The opening of a methadone clinic in Roanoke is still at least three months
away, as the company planning the controversial drug treatment center has
decided to spend more time meeting with members of the surrounding
neighborhood.

Joe Pritchard of CRC Health Group said Monday that he plans to speak with
area NAACP officials, business owners, local ministers, school leaders and
others before the clinic opens at 3208 Hershberger Road N.W.

At the same time, Pritchard said, the company is continuing to explore
alternative sites for the clinic, which opponents fear will bring crime,
drug dealing and traffic congestion to the Hershberger Road area.

When news of the clinic was first disclosed late last year, the plan was to
start treating drug addicts by March. But several estimates on when the
clinic might open were pushed back as CRC shopped around for other sites.

The latest decision to slow the process was made to allow for more
community meetings, not to buy additional time in the search for other
locations, said Pritchard, vice president of operations for CRC's eastern
region.

Looking for a new site recently became a lot more difficult, thanks to a
new law that bars methadone clinics from within a half-mile of schools or
state-licensed day care centers. The law has made most of the city
off-limits to the treatment, which incorporates out-patient counseling with
daily doses of methadone for addicts of opium-based drugs such as heroin
and OxyContin.

Last month, at a meeting hosted by Del. Onzlee Ware, D-Roanoke, CRC
officials offered to set up a task force made of local residents that will
meet monthly to deal with concerns and any problems that might surface once
the clinic opens. Pritchard said he hopes to set that plan in motion in the
coming weeks as he meets with people in small groups.

CRC officials have not been willing to meet with large groups at public
meetings, fearing that any meaningful dialogue would be lost in the emotion
and confusion that a crowd might create.

The Roanoke chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had
been planning a mass meeting, but recently decided to hold off. The group
remains opposed to the clinic, which they see as yet another example of the
black community getting stuck with the city's unwanted projects.

"We are always the dumping ground for what they don't want in Roanoke,"
said Perneller Chubb-Wilson, president of the group.

Opponents have raised fears that the clinic will operate a needle exchange,
offer treatment to sex offenders, bus in large groups of addicts for
treatment and even provide methadone as a treatment for pain to those not
addicted to drugs.

The clinic will do none of that, Pritchard said. Between 200 and 300 people
are expected to be treated at the clinic, which will open each day at 5
a.m. to accommodate a large number of patients who have jobs to go to.

CRC officials have discounted fears that the clinic will generate crime in
the area. "We're the solution," Philip Herschman, president of the
company's opioid treatment programs, told a group of residents at the
meeting hosted by Ware. "We're treating the folks in your area who are
already substance abusers. We're taking them off the streets."