METHADONE CLINIC DETENTE

Roanoke County has blocked a drug treatment center, for now, but will look
for a new site. Let reason prevail.

STICKING TO the particular site of a proposed methadone clinic in
Roanoke County is not important. Sticking to a commitment to have site
where drug addicts can get treatment is important.

County Administrator Elmer Hodge said Wednesday the county and the
clinic's backers will try to work out the parameters for a suitable
location and then to find one. Success, if it comes, is not likely to
be controversy-free.

It might avoid a lawsuit, though, a prospect that has seemed a dead-on
certainty since Life Center of Galax announced plans to open a
satellite clinic in a vacant doctor's office building at Colonial
Avenue and Ogden Road.

The idea met anguished opposition from the building's suburban
neighbors, who threatened to sue the county. The county's move then to
block the clinic - by deciding it did not comply with zoning
requirements after initially finding that it did - seemed certain to
land in court, and still may.

A reasonable, third alternative is to determine the clinic's needs,
alleviate as much as possible prospective neighbors' concerns and find
a site everyone can live with.

Of course, any proposed location can encounter opposition, perhaps
even the threat of a lawsuit. Methadone is a synthetic narcotic that,
used appropriately, curbs drug addicts' cravings for opioids such as
OxyContin and heroin.

The strength of the reaction against a treatment center for these
addicts is a measure of the scourge their addictions become, for them
and the communities made to suffer along with them. And that, in
itself, is an argument for a treatment center.

Drug addicts live in Roanoke County, just as they live in any
locality. The community is better served by treating their addictions
than by ignoring them. And the county should be willing to shoulder
its share of the social burden.

Hodge says it is, but that the proposed site is not ideal. Fine. A
clinic is needed - if not there, somewhere easily accessible to
addicts seeking help.