ABBY METHADONE CLINIC UNDER THE RADAR

Gemini Services, Abbotsford's only free-standing methadone clinic,
occupies a small, tidy space on Hazel Street in the old downtown area.

Black chairs line the wall of the clean waiting room, National
Geographic magazines are stacked on the side tables. It smells nice.
It's like a doctor's waiting room.

The little rooms in the back are set up like a doctor's examination
room.

Linda Baker greets people cheerfully as they come in.

She and husband Tony Baker, an addictions counsellor, took over the
office in 2000. The office is open three days a week.

Baker also works at the Fraser Valley Connection in Chilliwack two
days a week, where local addicts can get clean needles, methadone,
minor medical attention, counselling, encouragement, and when they're
ready, referrals to treatment centres and other services.

Two doctors certified by the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons
to prescribe methadone also come to the clinic to assess and admit
patients to the methadone program, to follow their progress and to
release them from the program.

Despite their strong opposition to harm reduction services, Baker says
he has not had a visit nor an invitation by any of Abbotsford's city
councillors. He says he hasn't had any complaints from his neighbours
either.

Gemini provides a full spectrum of counselling services, but the
clinic primarily provides methadone maintenance treatment.

Of the 72 Abbotsford intravenous drug users registered, Baker says
right now 46 per cent are on methadone only, the rest use a
combination of other prescription drugs or street drugs in combination
with methadone.

Baker is a convert. As an army drug counsellor for 20 years,
abstinence was the only option he pushed.

After retirement he joined a "very reputable office" where harm
reduction strategies were accepted and within a month, he said he saw
the benefits such as preventing HIV infection and giving the addict a
degree of self-control.

"I hated the concept of methadone, the idea it keeps the addiction
going. But now I see methadone as a medication. It's abstinence
through chemistry," he said, adding nicotine patches are exactly the
same thing.

Harm reduction strategies also allow addicts to get connected to
professionals in an informal, safe environment.

While abstinence works for some, particularly those who have been
using a short time, more options are needed for other addicts, he says.

"To say abstinence is going to work for everyone is draconian, it's
naive, it's ill-informed. Any sane expectation of spontaneous recovery
is just not there," for those who are severely addicted, he says.

The methadone program is "extremely cost-effective," calculating the
cost to be about $2,000 a year for each addict who visits his office.

In contrast, B.C.'s chief medical officer Dr. Perry Kendall says
society pays about $40,000 a year in crime, judicial and health costs
to have a heroin addict in active use. Lifetime costs to keep an AIDS
patient alive are at least $150,000.

Many users have a psychiatric illness that isn't readily obvious until
they are clean. Many also use more than one drug, which complicates
treatment.

Most of those on methadone come in each day to pick up their
prescription, which they take to a pharmacy. There they drink their
dose in front of the pharmacist. Those who are stable and have been
taking methadone for awhile are allowed to carry enough doses for
three to five days.

The methadone is restricted like this to prevent clients from selling
their medication on the street, Baker explains.

"If we catch wind of that, at a bare minimum, they're reduced to a
daily regimen again," he said.

Baker stresses that most addicts aren't the scruffy characters nodding
off in the street. Some get there eventually, after decades of drug
use. Many have jobs, are business people or students and live in
standard middle-class homes.