METHADONE CLINICS IN VA.: MENACES OR LIFESAVERS?

Police officials from jurisdictions with methadone clinics all said they
have not seen major criminal activity associated with the clinics.

In a plastic cup half-filled with red liquid methadone, Jennifer found the
antidote to her OxyContin addiction.

Jennifer, who for more than a year drove four hours a day to drink a dose
of methadone at a clinic run by the Life Center of Galax, completed the
drug-treatment program in June.

Now drug-free, Jennifer is raising two children in Radford and taking
classes at New River Community College. In recent weeks, she has watched
with dismay as the drug that mended her life has been portrayed as a menace.

Plans to open methadone clinics in Southwest Roanoke County and Northwest
Roanoke have angered nearby residents, who fear that creating a haven for
drug addicts will bring crime and drug dealing to their neighborhoods.

Those concerns are both understandable and unfounded, Jennifer said.
Jennifer, who asked that her last name not be used, said most people drawn
to methadone clinics have already decided to put crime and addiction behind
them. "Addiction causes crime when there's no help," she said. "If you have
access to something that's helping you, then there's no need for crime."

That seems to be true not just at the Life Center's facility in Galax, but
at the 13 other methadone clinics in Virginia, according to law enforcement
officials.

Police officials from jurisdictions with methadone clinics - Albemarle
County, Alexandria, Galax, Hampton, Manassas, Portsmouth, Norfolk,
Richmond, Tazewell County and Virginia Beach - all said recently that they
have not seen major criminal activity associated with the clinics.

In Alexandria and Albermarle County, authorities contacted this week were
not aware their jurisdictions had methadone clinics.

"Obviously, we don't have a big problem with it," said Amy Bertsch,
spokeswoman for the Alexandria Police Department. After checking police
logs, Bertsch found just one call related to the clinic since January 2002
- - a suspicious-activity report in which the caller's hunch of drug dealing
near the clinic could not be substantiated.

State and federal regulations require methadone clinics to have elaborate
security systems to guard against theft and misuse. Although there have
been some problems - in 1996 several people were charged with trying to
sell drugs to clinic patients in Richmond - methadone clinics for the most
part generate fewer police calls than the average nightclub.

There were just five calls involving the Hampton clinic in the past three
years, said Cpl. Jimmie Wideman, who didn't know the facility existed until
he responded to the building last year after an electrical storm set off
the burglar alarm.

And in Richmond, where its three clinics are the most for any Virginia
jurisdiction, "we've had no problems in terms of criminal activity at any
of our methadone clinics," said Cynthia Price, spokeswoman for the Richmond
Police Department.

As a Schedule II drug - the same category that includes cocaine, morphine
and OxyContin - methadone must be prescribed by a doctor as either a
painkiller or form of treatment for addiction to an opium-based drug. When
used appropriately for the latter, methadone stops an addict's cravings and
prevents withdrawal symptoms.

During the 15 months that Jennifer attended the Galax clinic, she said she
never saw anyone try to sell drugs to recovering addicts outside the
building. Nor did she witness any criminal activity by the patients.

"For most people, once you've reached the point of going to a clinic for
help, you've pretty much decided: 'I'm tired of my life as an addict,'" she
said.

Fears unfounded

In Tazewell County, where two years ago the Life Center opened a satellite
clinic similar to the one proposed for Roanoke County, nearby residents who
opposed the clinic remain wary of its patrons.

Several residents said they often call police about traffic problems and
suspected criminal activity outside the clinic, which occupies a former
restaurant on U.S. 19 in the town of Cedar Bluff.

Sheriff H.S. Caudill said police went so far as to stake out the clinic's
parking lot earlier this year but found no evidence of drug dealing.

Apart from an attempted burglary at the building, "we haven't had any major
problems," Caudill said. "The only thing I can say about it is it does
bring a lot of people to the county that I'm concerned about - not that we
don't have some of our own going to the clinic. But I can't say that
they're criminal, or that they've created any problems."

Traffic is another matter. A side street that serves both the clinic and a
number of homes behind it is often blocked by cars when the parking lot
overflows, said Rhonda Nelson, who lives nearby.

When the Life Center announced plans to open the clinic, Nelson organized a
petition drive and collected 3,000 signatures from concerned citizens, she
said. But with no zoning in Tazewell County, "there just wasn't anything we
could do to stop it," she said.

Some residents were so angry that they stopped speaking to Diann Collins,
who rents the clinic building to the Life Center.

Collins said she was taken aback by the resentment. But she holds to her
belief that a methadone clinic is needed in Tazewell County, which has been
particularly hard hit by OxyContin abuse.

"People need to be compassionate," she said. "There are a lot of people who
have died because they couldn't get help."

Collins said residents have discovered their worst fears were unfounded.
But in the minds of some, there remains a stigma associated with the clinic.

"It's really embarrassing," said Lois Bryant, who lives behind the clinic
and must stop her car at the intersection next to it before pulling out on
U.S. 19. "Every time I pull out of there, I'm ashamed that people think I'm
coming from the methadone clinic."

A moral weakness?

In both Northwest Roanoke and Southwest Roanoke County, the concerns are
the same:

Putting a methadone clinic in a residential area will lead to traffic
congestion, increased crime and decreased property values, residents say.
The proximity of schools to the proposed clinics is another source of anxiety.

At a charged community meeting in September, one Roanoke County resident
was so angry about the possibility of his child being approached by a drug
dealer that he shouted into the microphone.

Addiction experts offer another view: Studies show that criminal activity
by addicts decreases when they are enrolled in methadone clinics. And not
all addicts are criminals in the true sense of the word.

"I know there's a lot of concern about the methadone clinic and how it's
going to bring a lot of riffraff into the neighborhood. Well, excuse me,
but drug addiction is an equal-opportunity disease," said Dr. Marty Wunsch,
an associate professor of addiction studies at the Edward Via Virginia
College of Osteopathic Medicine in Blacksburg.

"We have professionals with addictions, we have full-time moms and dads
with addictions, we have college students with addictions, we have
successful middle-aged business owners with addictions," Wunsch said.

Jennifer cites herself as an example. She grew up in a middle-class family
in Russell County. Her father was a prison guard and her mother owned a
home health care business.

The 28-year-old said she became addicted to OxyContin, a powerful
painkiller that has been widely abused in far Southwest Virginia, after a
doctor prescribed it to her for back pain.

Jennifer said she tried to quit on her own, but methadone was the only
thing that worked.

Although Jennifer said she was weaned off methadone in 15 months, other
clinic patients remain dependent on the drug for years. "Some people say
it's just trading one drug for another, and don't think I haven't thought
about that," Jennifer said. "But the thing is, there's not much else."

A body of medical research shows that methadone is effective, Wunsch said.
Methadone prescriptions are just part of a treatment plan that includes
counseling, doctor consultations, drug tests and other forms of therapy.

The use of a drug to treat drug abusers is based on the premise that they
suffer from a disease, not a moral weakness.

Arguing against methadone treatment is akin to saying, "Let's not give
diabetics insulin," Wunsch said. "This is something that people need to
stabilize their addiction."

Not on my street

Many Roanoke Valley residents opposed to methadone clinics agree there is a
need for them. But they question why two companies have selected sites in
residential areas.

The Life Center of Galax wants to open a clinic at Colonial Avenue and
Ogden Road in Roanoke County. While those plans became ensnared in legal
wrangling over a business license, a second company quietly obtained
approval from the city of Roanoke before news of its intentions reached the
community. National Specialty Clinics of Nashville, Tenn., is planning a
clinic at Hershberger and Cove roads.

Quick approval of the city site - compared to the way Roanoke County
officials scheduled a community meeting to hear from residents before
denying the Life Center a business license - has led some to complain that
Northwest Roanoke will become a dumping ground for the county's problems.

City council members and City Manager Darlene Burcham did not know about
the clinic until after the license was approved, they said this week.

"I just find it totally astounding that the city didn't ask any questions
or do any research whatsoever," Jeff Artis said.

Artis, a community activist opposed to the Hershberger Road clinic, said
existing drug activity in the area makes it more vulnerable to problems.

A rally by opponents is planned Tuesday at the site. Artis said he believes
National Specialty Clinics picked a black neighborhood as the path of least
resistance.

While police agencies in Virginia say they have encountered few problems
with methadone clinics, Washington, D.C., is another story. Last year, The
Washington Post reported that three methadone clinics located a few blocks
apart have become the scene of an open-air drug market where opportunistic
dealers try to tempt recovering addicts into a relapse.

U.S. Attorney John Brownlee cited that report last month in telling the
Roanoke County Board of Supervisors that a methadone clinic "may very well"
bring crime to the area.

Another concern is the growing abuse of methadone.

Last year, 62 people died from methadone overdoses in the western half of
Virginia, according to the state medical examiner's office. Fatal methadone
overdoses now surpass those caused by oxycodone, which was once the
region's most deadly drug.

Wunsch, who has worked with the medical examiner's office in examining the
overdoses, said the methadone fatalities appear to be caused by the tablet
form of the drug, which is prescribed by doctors as a painkiller. Methadone
clinics use a liquid form that is harder to abuse, she said.

Despite the drug's deadly side, people such as Jennifer say methadone is an
equally powerful lifesaver.

Most addicts agree, she said, that if left unchecked their drug use will
take them in one of three directions:

"It's either going to be jail, an institution or death."

With methadone, Jennifer found a fourth alternative: a normal life.