METHADONE

Booming Industry

WE'VE ALWAYS felt that America's war on drugs is mostly an exercise in
futility, a replay of the historic fiasco that occurred when Prohibition
sought to stamp out alcohol. Repeatedly, we have urged that drug-users be
given treatment instead of being jailed as criminals.

Therefore, we're pleased that West Virginia is acquiring methadone clinics
where OxyContin and heroin addicts can obtain a legal synthetic opiate for
only $12 a day.

This blocks their craving for costly street drugs, and reduces their need
to steal to support their habits. If enough addicts turn to legal
methadone, the criminal rings supplying illegal narcotics may lose their
customers and go out of business.

Still, it's slightly disturbing to see methadone clinics spreading as a
booming, for-profit, commercial, "growth industry" in West Virginia. We'd
feel more comfortable if the methadone were provided by county health
departments or nonprofit clinics - groups with no incentive to sell more
methadone to earn more money.

Reporter Tara Tuckwiller has documented how the for-profit clinics appeared
abruptly in the Mountain State, with seven already in operation, two more
to open this year, and five others awaiting approval by the state Health
Care Authority. Many of the clinics are located near state borders, to draw
customers from neighbor states.

A clinic executive told Tuckwiller proudly that methadone sales have been
"an overwhelming success. ... We experienced more of a response than we
thought we'd get."

We're glad when business booms - but it's vaguely troubling that these
profits come from providing daily narcotic "fixes" to drug addicts.

Tuckwiller noted in last Sunday's paper that some addicts are abusing
methadone just as they abused OxyContin. In Mercer County, a woman addict
is charged with giving her doctor-prescribed methadone to a friend -
killing him with an overdose. It was Mercer's third methadone death in a
year. Just across the border in Virginia, 44 people were killed by
methadone in a single year. Maine reported more overdose deaths from
methadone than any other drug.

"God, this is worse than OxyContin ever dreamed of being," drug task force
officer C.J. Smothers said.

West Virginia's commercial clinics aren't regulated by the state.
Tuckwiller found that most clinics send clients home with bottles of
methadone on weekends, not knowing whether the highly addictive drug is
used properly or peddled to friends.

In some states with both state-run and commercial clinics, the for-profit
shops offer bigger doses, to draw customers away from the governmental
facilities.

Ohio requires that all methadone clinics must be nonprofit or
government-run. With no desire to sell more opiates to earn more profits,
such clinics are more likely to help clients overcome addiction and be
weaned off drugs.

We think West Virginia legislators should study this troubling situation,
and perhaps copy Ohio's policy.