METHADONE CLINIC THAT JOHNSON CITY DIDN'T WANT OK'D, SHOULD BE OPEN IN SIX
MONTHS

NASHVILLE - The Tennessee Health Facilities Commission approved the Johnson
City Addiction Research and Treatment Center with a 8-0-1 vote in Nashville
Wednesday.

The clinic - to be located at 200 W. Fairview Ave. in Johnson City - will
offer methadone treatment for a projected 250 people in its first two years
of operation.

Janet Givens Jones, a member of the HFC from Johnson City, abstained.

"We're not that picture of a methadone clinic everybody has - we're very
comprehensive," said Rusty Titsworth, who will be the director of
operations at the clinic, citing counseling and other services to be
offered by the clinic.

Methadone is a legal, synthetic opioid that is used as a substitute for
heroin and other addictive painkillers. Regular oral consumption of the
drug blocks heroin withdrawal symptoms, one of the biggest hurdles for
addicts to overcome when they try to quit the drug.

Johnson City groups including Frontier Health, the James H. Quillen College
of Medicine at East Tennessee State University, the Chamber of Commerce,
Central Baptist Church, St. John's Episcopal Church and Watauga Insurance
filed opposition to the clinic.

"We didn't feel there was a need for this clinic," said Dr. Ronald D.
Franks, ETSU dean of medicine and vice president for health affairs at
ETSU. "Patients in the area are very well taken care of without methadone."

Franks said he and representatives from Frontier Health and the Chamber of
Commerce testified at the hearing Wednesday that the clinic will bring in
people from outside the area that will require more services - social,
financial and other medical services - than the clinic will offer.

"We're staffed and prepared to deal with the people in Johnson City, but
it's our anticipation that people will travel some distance and take
advantage of other services - we're not funded or staffed to absorb those
additional patients," said Franks.

He noted the clinic will be located across the street from the Downtown
Clinic, which treats homeless people and other indigent patients for free
on an "already razor-thin margin."

Titsworth said there are already more than 200 people traveling out of the
area for methadone treatment and some of those people can now be treated
locally.

He said it his organization's goal to work with other health care providers
as well as faith-based groups in the community.

"Our goal is to get people help and get them drug free," he said. "We're
going to be a high-class, high-quality place."

He said many patients at other clinics in the state he works with have
tried inpatient treatment, but found themselves "in a cycle" they couldn't
break.

The clinic is expected to open in six months.

Titsworth said the group will hire six counselors, three nurses and a
physician.

He said a phone number will be available in coming months for potential
patients to call and be put on a waiting list.

Franks said he and others opposed to clinic could not say yet if they plan
to appeal the HFC's decision.

He did say since the same group has a clinic in Nashville that works
closely with the medical school at Vanderbilt he will "see if there's some
way we can work together, assuming they do provide a high-quality service."

Friends of Old Downtown - a group working to revitalize the area - say
they're worried the clinic will hinder development downtown.

The group's treasurer, Ed Gibbons, said the mere connotation of a methadone
clinic is sure to keep some people from coming downtown to shop, live and play.

Gibbons also owns Watauga Insurance.

"That's a shame," he said Wednesday afternoon. "Here we are trying to
revitalize downtown and something like this moves into our neighborhood. It
will only compound itself."

Gibbons said the Health Facilities Commission's decision surprised him
since methadone clinics had previously been turned down in Kingsport and
Bristol.

While Gibbons said he was not opposed to methadone treatment and felt those
who need it deserve to receive the drug, he felt it would be better located
elsewhere.

"It could easily be put somewhere else. There are buildings in North
Johnson City," he said.

Johnson City city leaders have also spoken out against the downtown clinic.
At a public hearing on June 14 City Manager Mike West said the clinic would
negatively impact the downtown area.

Titsworth said many patients will receive treatment very early in the
morning, since most of them will have jobs.

"We'll be open so early, nobody will know we're there," he said.