COUNCIL, POLICE CHIEF CONSIDER MOBILE METHADONE CLINIC

Newport City, Vermont

Newport City's mayor, police chief and aldermen expressed cautious support
Thursday for a mobile methadone clinic serving the Newport-St. Johnsbury
corridor.

At the request of Vermont Health Commissioner Dr. Paul Jarris, aldermen and
the mayor also vied to serve on a citizens advisory committee and promised
to host a public forum soon.

Dr. Jarris brought a stark message to community leaders across the
Northeast Kingdom Thursday: Heroin is cheap, extremely addictive, and
dealers view northern New England as an untapped market, according to
federal experts.

Young teens, especially girls, are targets, he noted. Heroin packs come
with stickers on them designed to be attractive to girls.

Dealers are handing out heroin-laced cigarettes. Heroin is sold in a
buy-one, get-two-free deal that also appeals to peer-dependent teens,
Jarris told the city council and police chief.

"We have an impression that it's a dirtball problem. It's not that way
anymore. People getting involved are good kids and we've got to save them,"
Jarris said.

He called opiates addiction a chronic disease that can be treated but is not.

The cure rate through abstention and counseling - without methadone and
related drugs - is about 30 percent.

With the drugs, it's 90 percent, Dr. Jarris said. "We can't throw these
young lives away. We are not providing them with treatment."

Gov. James Douglas pulled the leaders of the departments of Corrections,
Public Safety and Health together and asked for a solution to the growing
addiction problem in Vermont, Jarris said. Corrections Commissioner Steve
Gold and Public Safety Commissioner Kerry Sleeper both said they can't
solve it.

So it's up to the medical profession, Jarris said, which has a moral and
ethical responsibility to promote methadone treatment.

No community other than Burlington has been willing to host a methadone
clinic. But the state is now promoting a mobile clinic, with the priority
in the Northeast Kingdom. There are 63 people in the NEK who are already on
methadone treatment.

Jarris estimated there are 200 people who would turn to methadone treatment
if it was available locally.

The cost alone has driven the state to consider mobile clinics here. Of the
$526,000 spent on transporting addicts to methadone treatment centers in
Burlington, New Hampshire or Massachusetts last year, $451,348 was spent on
NEK residents alone.

"I think there is not enough information out there," said Alderman Ellwood
"Woody" Guyette. "I've changed my mind listening to you."

Mayor Richard "Dick" Baraw shared his personal experience of traveling to
New Hampshire to reach essential medical care. He drove daily for seven
weeks for treatment for minor cancer, and also was the driver for a friend
who need dialysis three times a week.

"I can tell you, It was horrendous sometimes," Baraw said. "I can imagine
more would seek treatment if it was here."

Aldermen Paul Monette and John Wilson favored a mobile daily clinic over a
fixed location clinic.

Residents have called Monette, many opposed to a methadone clinic. "But
some said they could tolerate the mobile unit. I'd rather see us move
toward the mobile unit," Monette said.

Police chiefs in Burlington and Greenfield, Mass., have said that crime is
dropping with the presence of the methadone clinic, Jarris said.

City Police Chief J. Paul Duquette, who met earlier Thursday with Jarris,
also prefers the mobile clinic.

Mobile clinics would take treatment closer to those who need it rather than
making it likely they would move to Newport City, Duquette said.

Jarris urged the council to change its view of those who need methadone
treatment, possibly for life. "These are teachers' kids and nurses' kids,"
he said. He described a farmer and business executive, both of the NEK, who
are living a normal life on daily methadone treatment.

The state has two groups, as yet unnamed, which have bid on providing the
mobile clinic.

Guyette urged Jarris to spread the word about the need for methadone
treatment, and welcomed him to return to Newport City for a public forum.

Jarris took his message to groups across the region Thursday. He was to
speak Thursday evening at the Orleans Central Supervisory Union board
meeting in Barton. He has already spoken to Orleans Essex North Supervisory
Union.

Jarris is actively seeking education, business and community leaders to
join the advisory committee.

Also Thursday, he met with people in St. Johnsbury and is expected to
return there to speak at a public forum June 9.

Jarris is optimistic about the mobile clinics, so much so that he hadn't
considered what would happen if Newport City agreed to host a mobile clinic
site, but St. Johnsbury did not.

He made it plain it's up to the communities to agree to host the clinics,
mobile or not.

Meanwhile, North Country Hospital's board of directors was expected to take
a first look Thursday night at whether the hospital should debate hosting a
methadone clinic.