METHADONE PUSH

State insists Clark County must play host to one or two clinics for local
addicts

Clark County got away with shunning the methadone controversy for 16 years,
but now the state has come knocking.

As the county figures out how to meet the Legislature's demands that heroin
addicts be provided with opiate-substitution treatment opportunities close
to home, the preferable way might be an idea from King County: a mobile
clinic. Otherwise, state and county officials will be shoving clinics into
at least one and maybe two unhappy neighborhoods. And never mind the
authoritative evidence against negative mythology about methadone programs.

One myth has been around for all the four decades since the chemical
substitute for heroin became an important tool for treating addiction. That
is the notion that clinics attract neighborhoods addicts who bring with
them the criminal ways they developed to support their habits. Methadone
advocates can show convincingly to anyone who will listen that it doesn't
really happen that way.

Nonetheless, the worry that it will happen suffices to stir angry
opposition in most any neighborhood invited to accept a clinic. That was
part of why the county ordained in 1986 that there should be no such clinic
in the county. The rule meant sending resident addicts across the river for
the treatment that might help them become productive members of the
community. In effect, the county said the addicts' interests were
outweighed by the worries of the rest of the population.

Sen. Julia Patterson, D-Sea-Tac, led the 2001 legislative push to require
counties to deal with their own addicts. She and others brandished
statistics from the Governor's Heroin Task Force showing that every dollar
spent on treatment saves up to five bucks in law enforcement and health
care costs.

The Legislature dismissed arguments that the bill would unduly pre- empt
county authority in siting the programs. Patterson subsequently won a seat
on the King County Council and left the Senate.

The statute is in place and the Department of Health and Human Services is
using it to spread opiate substitution more equably among the addict
population. The state statistics and formula say this county should have at
least one and maybe two clinics for 595 addicts, 100 of whom now ride the
bus to Portland for their substitute and 30 of whom are on a waiting list
to get into a program.

The Legislature did leave a little slot for the county and public to have a
say: one hearing. It's set for 6:30 p.m. Oct. 2 at the Vancouver Community
Library, 1007 E. Mill Plain Boulevard.

By then, perhaps the four bidders will consider in greater detail the buzz
saws of opposition they'll likely face in any neighborhood. Perhaps they
will take a good look at the mobile opiate-substitution clinic in King
County. Such a van in Clark County could serve the addicts and the
neighborhoods as well by just visiting rather than taking up residence.