CALGARY ADDICTS FLOODING RED DEER METHADONE CLINIC

Drug addicts from as far south as Calgary are making use of Red Deer's
methadone clinic.

The clinic, which open last November is seeing 300 drug addicts at present
under the Central Alberta Methadone Program.

The program covers Red Deer and all of Central Alberta but many addicts are
also coming from Calgary says Bill Leslie, social worker and counsellor at
the clinic said.

"Right now we have approximately 125 people coming to our clinic from
Calgary," he said.

But Leslie said that number will likely drop with the opening of a methadone
clinic in Calgary in September.

The Red Deer clinic opened their doors to the public with three doctors, one
psychiatrist, one registered nurse and three counsellors.

Methadone was used by the Germans during the war for pain.

They discovered soldiers using methadone were able to function normally as
if they weren't in any pain while those using other drugs for treatment were
bedridden.

Methadone is now used to treat people who are addicted to morphine, heroin
and other opiates.

The effects of the substitute drug can last 24 to 36 hours and the cost is
less than $10 a day.

Methadone coats the pleasure receptors in the brain so the users don't need
to take the actual hard-core drugs, Leslie said.

"They can do whatever anyone else can do (once they have taken methadone),"
he said. "Methadone doesn't make (the user) high, it just kills the need for
drug use."

Treatments consist of addicts drinking methadone, usually mixed with orange
juice, daily in front of a pharmacist.

After positive progress they are able to take the medication home to use.

"We try to get them off illicit drugs and back into school and with their
families," Leslie said.

After having clean urine samples for three to six months, the methadone
dosage is lowered.

Eventually the addicts will not feel the need for methadone and will have
kicked the habit of drug use.

Many drug users who attend the clinic used to have daily habits of $500 to
$1000.

The clinic has an 80 per cent success rate, Leslie said.

Leslie estimates there are about 1,500 injection drug users currently in Red
Deer.