RESIDENTS WANT HEALTH OFFICIALS TO DENY METHADONE LICENSES

Clinics Would Be Half-mile Apart In Pikesville

Outraged Pikesville residents are expected to meet with top state health
officials today to ask them to deny licenses for two methadone clinics
planned a half-mile apart in their community. Operators of a program called
START (Success Through Acceptable Rehabilitative Treatment) have asked the
state to grant them a license to open a clinic on the site of an abandoned
gas station at 110 Reisterstown Road. A second program, Helping Hand, is
seeking state permission to open in a small office building at 116 Slade Ave.

Methadone is a legal narcotic that is used to wean heroin addicts from
their addiction by controlling withdrawal symptoms. Yet residents fear the
two clinics will attract hundreds of addicts to their neighborhood just
over the city line.

"Around the area where this is supposed to be, it's a big residential
area," said Reva Bounan, president of the Ralston Community Association.
"We don't want it."

A spokesman for the START program said the clinic would operate in a
metropolitan region that is home to 60,000 heroin addicts. The office would
be run by an experienced clinical director and is not affiliated with any
other methadone programs.

"The No. 1 public health crisis in America is substance abuse," said Chip
Silverman, a former deputy director of the state Drug Abuse Administration
who is serving as a consultant to START. "But nobody ever wants it in their
neighborhood."

Joel Prell, operator of Helping Hand, declined to comment yesterday on the
proposal. Prell met last week with community leaders and told them that he
has had no problems with a methadone clinic that operates next to his Glen
Burnie pizza parlor.

Prell wants to open his clinic in a former doctor's office. It would not be
affiliated with any other methadone clinics and like START would be run by
a clinical director trained in methadone administration.

Residents acknowledge that there is little they can do to stop the
for-profit clinic proposals.

County zoning regulations restricting methadone clinics to industrial areas
were struck down two years ago by a federal court, which ruled the
restrictions were a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The
proposed clinics would be in commercial zones, where such uses are permitted.

County Councilman Kevin Kamenetz , a Pikesville-Randallstown Democrat, said
the proposals couldn't have come at a worse time. Over the past few years,
the county has spent $2.5 million trying to spruce up sections of
Pikesville using various means, including streetscape improvements and
business loans.

Three vacant businesses - a former gas station, ice cream store and baked
goods outlet - are at Milford Mill and Reisterstown roads, near the
proposed site of the Helping Hand program.

Community leaders are angry that the state licensing process for the
clinics required no notification of area residents. The groups learned of
the proposals through Kamenetz, who heard a rumor and confirmed it with
county health officials.

"Unfortunately, it's a free enterprise system between landlords and
tenants," Kamenetz said.

Community groups say that lobbying state officials is their only hope of
stopping the clinics. They have initiated a letter-writing campaign and
sent a petition signed by 1,500 people to the state Department of Health
and Mental Hygiene. Community group leaders plan to meet today in Baltimore
with Health Secretary Dr. Georges Benjamin.

State Sens. Barbara A. Hoffman and Paula C. Hollinger are supporting the
community's opposition to the clinics, as is state Del. Robert A. Zirkin.