METHADONE PILOT PROGRAM WINNING SUPPORT

Joanne, 46, is a mother of two, a former go-go dancer and a recovering
heroin addict. To control her psychiatric condition, she gets pills at a
local pharmacy.

But to get the methadone she needs to keep off heroin, she must drive 30
miles each Friday to the Advanced Treatment Systems clinic in Coatesville,
which I described in my column yesterday.

Most weeks that's not a problem, but on the Thursday that I interviewed
Joanne (not her real name), she wasn't sure how she was going to get to
Coatesville the next day. "There's something wrong with my car's fuel
line," she said.

According to experts, methadone doesn't make patients "high," but helps
them to live more normal lives. A methadone-maintenance program, however,
hasn't been available in Lancaster County since 1983, even though there are
an estimated 500 heroin users here.Life would be a little easier for
someone like Joanne, who has been clean and sober for two years, if she
could go to a local pharmacy to fill a prescription for methadone.

It's an idea that has promise. Under consideration is a research project
that would allow 10 to 20 stable methadone users to get their medication at
Ganse Apothecary on West King Street.

Grass-roots proposal

Let me be clear about this. The proposal is not for a methadone clinic. It
would be limited to a few stable patients like Joanne rather than to the
several hundred who daily go to a standard methadone center.

Patients, chosen by ATS counselors in Coatesville for their long-term
compliance with treatment and counseling, would go to Ganse Apothecary like
any other customer and take home a week's supply of methadone.

The workhorse behind the proposal is Robert Field of Lancaster, a
semiretired developer and manager of apartment complexes and hotels and a
long-time advocate of drug-law reform."Methadone is to a heroin addict what
insulin is to diabetics," Field said. "Both take their medicine
indefinitely. Both go on with rewarding and productive lives. This removes
serious threats to the public safety and public health and certainly is
consistent with the Judeo-Christian teachings of "lifting up the fallen'
and strengthening family ties."

Field and others who want to make methadone treatment more accessible have
formed the Lancaster Committee to Facilitate Treatment of Heroin Addicts.
Dr. Samuel A. Rice, an internist, chairs the committee, and if the proposal
receives state and federal approval, he would examine the patients in his
Lancaster County office at least monthly.

"If my diabetes patients on insulin had to travel an hour a day, how many
of them would be compliant with treatment?" Rice asked. "Yet we're asking
(recovering addicts) to spend $3,600 out of pocket, plus travel expenses,
to maintain themselves in a methadone program. I think it's an insane system."

National implications

Jerry Ganse of Ganse Apothecary was open to participating after Field
approached him."This was a way to use some of our knowledge and provide a
service," he said. "It's for people you and I could sit next to in a movie
theater and never know they're being supported by methadone."

Researchers are interested in office-based methadone treatment. Dr. Ernest
Drucker, a professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx,
has agreed to evaluate Lancaster's pilot program.Field hopes the research
will lead to a federal protocol for programs across the country. Lancaster
would be a trendsetter.

Rick Kastner, director of the county's Drug and Alcohol Commission, said
office-based methadone makes sense for the right patients. Research shows
methadone reduces the harm of heroin addiction and helps recovering addicts
find work and housing, he said. They also are less likely to commit crimes.

The commission's advisory board and county Commissioners Paul Thibault and
Ron Ford have written letters of support. The proposal now awaits action by
state and federal agencies.

In the meantime, local patients like Joanne travel to Coatesville,
Harrisburg or Reading for methadone. It's an inconvenience, but it's worth
it."The craving for heroin, this obsession to do it, goes away," Joanne
said of methadone's effect as she cupped her hands at her temples. "It gets
rid of the obsession, the back pain, the leg pain. It makes me able to live
a normal life."