USING METHADONE IN MAINE, FOR GOOD AND AT TIMES BAD

PORTLAND, Me. - When Michelle, a 24-year-old addict, was looking for a fix,
methadone, with its slow-action and minimal high, was not her first choice.
Her preference was heroin, and she said she was so hooked on it that she
had made her 4-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter "sit in the other room
while I shoot up."

But recently, Michelle and her husband, Shannon, who spoke on condition
that their last name not be used, found that they could sometimes obtain
methadone more easily than other drugs.

"I've done methadone when I needed something and there was nothing else
around," said Michelle, who, along with her husband, a cocaine addict,
recently enrolled in a treatment clinic. "On Halloween night, for me to be
able to take my kids trick-or-treating, we did 30 milligrams apiece and
then we were able to go trick-or-treating. I'm thankful that I took that
methadone or my kids wouldn't have had Halloween."

In Maine and elsewhere, methadone has slipped quietly onto the drug abuse
scene, filling in when drugs like OxyContin and heroin are in short supply.
Most indications are that, like OxyContin a few years ago, methadone first
became a problem in rural areas and has been spreading to other parts of
the country, law enforcement officials say.

In an increasing number of cases, methadone abuse has proved deadly. Some
victims have rarely, if ever, used it before. Sometimes a victim was given
methadone by someone who had been prescribed the drug for pain or was
enrolled in a methadone clinic, a friend trying to help an addict unable to
find other drugs.

The Portland police say Seth Jordan's death was emblematic of many they
have seen in the last year. In April, the police say, Mr. Jordan, 27, was
given his first dose of methadone by Scott Darling, a patient at the CAP
Quality Care methadone clinic in Westbrook, a Portland suburb. Mr. Jordan
was found dead in the hallway of his apartment building.

Mr. Darling has since been charged with manslaughter, one of several cases
in which prosecutors have pressed criminal charges against clinic patients
suspected of providing methadone to overdose victims.

Bob Jordan, Mr. Jordan's father, said his son had struggled with mental
illness for several years and took illegal drugs with acquaintances like
Mr. Darling. Still, Mr. Jordan said, "I was totally stunned that Seth would
have taken that methadone and that he would have died from it."