Part One

THE CLINIC CLASH

Editor's note: This is the first in a three-part series examining the
debate about a possible methadone clinic in Champaign. Thursday: Inside a
methadone clinic.

After using heroin regularly since the mid-1980s, Champaign resident Katy
Kalman decided it was finally time to quit in September 2000.

But she knew that most people don't quit heroin because they become so
physically addicted to it. Longtime users initially experience euphoric
highs and end up taking heroin just to keep from getting sick.

"I was tired of being a slave to going and getting stuff," Kalman says as
she sits in an Urbana coffee shop near campus. She blends in with students
and young professionals scattered around the cafe.

Kalman, who is married and has a 13-year-old daughter, tried to quit on her
own for months.

"I got violently ill," she says. "I couldn't get out of bed except to go
and throw up."

Kalman is aware that for decades methadone has been used as a drug
treatment that allows addicts to withdraw from heroin. Methadone, an opiate
like heroin, has a similar effect on the body, but instead of producing the
high, it eliminates the intense pain of heroin withdrawal.

When Kalman started searching for a methadone clinic nearby, she was
dismayed to learn that the closest clinics were in Decatur, Kankakee,
Peoria and Springfield -- cities that were an hour to an hour-and-a-half
drive away. She decided to go to the Duane Dean Behavioral Health Center in
Kankakee because it accepts clients on a sliding-scale fee.

Since she began going to Duane Dean in January, Kalman has put 35,000 miles
on her car. She makes the 150-mile round trip to Kankakee six days a week
(she gets a take-home dose for Sundays), spending up to five hours each
morning on the road and at the clinic.

"We try to lead the nation in terms of methadone treatment," says Jasper
Jay Jones, a senior counselor who supervises the methadone maintenance
program at Duane Dean.

Jones says the center does not try to "put a Band-aid" on the problem of
heroin addiction. Instead, the staff builds a treatment program based on a
client's individual needs. Jones estimates that 30 people like Kalman drive
to the center from Champaign for methadone treatments, which are
distributed as pills dissolved in water or juice. Of the clinic's roughly
250 clients, 103 are taking methadone. The rest come to the center only to
receive group and individual counseling.

In addition to the 30 or so heroin addicts who travel to Kankakee, there
may be two dozen more local addicts who travel to the methadone clinics in
Decatur, Peoria and Springfield.

Julie Pryde, director of social services for the Champaign-Urbana Public
Health District, says those addicts who travel to outlying clinics are "the
tip of the iceberg" in terms of the total number of area addicts who need
treatment. Pryde has supported recent efforts to open a methadone clinic in
downtown Champaign.

"I guarantee you if we see a methadone clinic (here), we'll see the true
nature of the epidemic in the community," she says.

Nationwide, heroin use is increasing. The National Household Survey on Drug
Abuse reports that 2.9 million people have used heroin at least once, and
663,000 have used it in the last year.

Kendric Speagle, senior in LAS, sparked fierce debate earlier this year
when he proposed to open a methadone clinic in downtown Champaign. Speagle
saw the need for such a clinic soon after he began Harm Reduction Resource,
a program that allows drug addicts to exchange used needles for clean ones
to limit the spread of diseases such as AIDS.

When the former naval officer moved to the area more than a year ago to
attend the University, he was surprised to learn that there was no needle
exchange program in central Illinois. Speagle, who had done some public
health work in the Navy aboard an aircraft carrier, considered the lack of
such a service in the area "unconscionable." He approached Pryde with the
idea of starting a needle exchange program.

With the support of the public health department, Speagle started Harm
Reduction Resource. He received training from Dan Bigg, the director of the
Chicago Recovery Alliance, one of the largest needle exchange programs in
the country.

Speagle carries a cell phone to respond to calls from addicts. He says that
from July 2000, when Harm Reduction Resource began, until the end of
September this year he has received calls from 158 addicts, and he has
about 70 regular customers. He estimates 95 percent of the people he sees
are heroin addicts.

Based on National Institute of Drug Abuse statistics, Speagle approximates
the number of heroin users in Champaign to be "right around 500." But
Speagle says the number could be even higher.

"Our clients tell us so," he says.

In late 2000 and early 2001 Speagle approached state and federal agencies
with the idea of starting a methadone clinic. He also identified a location
in downtown Champaign on the first floor of 12 East Washington Street.

Many business owners and residents were upset when they learned the
location was just north of Orpheum Children's Science Museum. People also
were angry that Speagle wanted to operate a needle exchange program at the
clinic. Speagle attempted to allay fears at a packed public meeting in
April held in the Champaign City Council chambers.

"I think a few people may have been educated," Speagle remembers, "but I
think for the most part minds were made up before the forum."

Andrew Timms is the president of the Champaign Downtown Association, which
represents about 30 Champaign businesses that would rather the clinic be
located elsewhere. Timms says that when the clinic was proposed, the board
of the Champaign Downtown Association gathered information on the project.
As part of that effort, Timms spoke with the executive director of the
Duane Dean Center.

"My impression of that clinic is that it's an example for the nation,"
Timms says. Duane Dean has been in downtown Kankakee since 1972.

"Our community supports us wholeheartedly," Jones says. "That's because
they're aware the numbers of crimes committed by heroin addicts has lessened."

Timms acknowledges there might be a need for a methadone clinic in
Champaign, but he says, "I'm still not convinced it's as big a problem as
it's presented to us by some."

Fresh in the minds of many Champaign business owners when the methadone
clinic was proposed was the fact that the Transitional Initiatives Men's
Emergency Services Center, a men's homeless shelter, opened two years ago
in downtown Champaign. A divided city council approved $300,000 for the
$1.4 million shelter at Washington and Market streets despite intense
objections of many downtown business owners. Earlier this year the
Champaign Downtown Association published statistics from the Champaign
Police Department that showed that crime had increased 20 percent around
the TIMES Center since it opened.

"The facility has been poorly run," Timms says.

But Tim Shea, manager of the TIMES Center, says the increased crime rate
near the shelter is partially due to domestic disputes and traffic
violations, which aren't related to the shelter. Shea says that Timms and
the Champaign Downtown Association tend to emphasize that the center has
had a negative impact on their businesses.

"Those folks didn't want the TIMES Center here to begin with," Shea says.

But Shea understands why Timms is concerned about the proposed methadone
clinic. He says many agencies in town also questioned Speagle's motives and
his credentials.

"He wasn't working with all these entities," Shea says.

Speagle has been called pushy, arrogant and inexperienced by many. "You
know, I'm assertive, and I get things done," he says.

Joyce Schmidt, director of homeless programs for the TIMES Center, has had
experience directing and working at two methadone clinics in the Chicago
area, and directing another in Medford, Ore. Initially, she supported
opening a methadone clinic in downtown Champaign, but when she learned more
about the project, she was unsure Speagle had the knowledge and experience
to run the clinic.

"You really need to have somebody who knows what they're doing with
methadone dosage, and also somebody who knows addicts," she says.

Pryde says Speagle was the only one who was willing to address the problem.

When he initially started talking to the Public Health District about
starting a methadone clinic, Speagle was hoping another service provider in
town such as Prairie Center, the primary drug treatment organization in the
area, would run it. But when no other providers came forward, "We decided
we would assume control of the initiative," Speagle says.

Prairie Center operates a residential treatment facility in downtown
Champaign. Bruce Barnard, associate director of Prairie Health Systems for
Champaign and Ford counties, says Prairie Center isn't interested in
starting a methadone clinic.

"We have never done it because our focus is abstinence-based treatment," he
says.

Sandy Lewis, CEO of Provena Behavioral Health Center, which administers the
TIMES Center and a mental health services facility in downtown Champaign,
has said she fears a methadone clinic would put too much of a concentration
of social service and medical service centers in one area.

"It's the typical 'NIMBY' (Not In My Backyard) attitude," Pryde says of
resistance to the clinic. A methadone clinic would reduce crime, she says,
because addicts would be able to get off heroin and work.

Pryde says downtown business owners suggested that the methadone clinic be
located in the building that houses the Champaign-Urbana Public Health
District. The building, just north of downtown Champaign on Neil Street,
does not have the space for the clinic, Pryde says. She shares a cramped
15-foot-by-15-foot office with the two other public health workers for the
county.

She and her co-workers say the real reason the Champaign Downtown
Association would like the proposed methadone clinic moved to the public
health building is because the area is surrounded by a primarily black
neighborhood and many business owners and residents see heroin addiction as
a "black problem."

Speagle's data on his clients shows that 72 percent are white and 23
percent are black.

Champaign Mayor Jerry Schweighart characterizes the neighborhood around the
public health building as "diverse." He also doesn't believe that most of
the heroin addicts that Speagle sees are white.

"I put no faith in his numbers," Schweighart says.

Schweighart was a police officer in Champaign for more than 30 years, and
he says that most of the heroin users he saw were black.

Gary Spear, crime analyst at the Champaign Police Department, says 90
percent of the arrests made for drug use happen in the northeast area of
Champaign, a low-income, predominantly black area north of University Avenue.

Mike Carey, a county probation officer with a caseload of nearly 300 drug
abusers, says the public tends to think drug use and crime happen only in
northeast Champaign. "They don't realize next door the neighbor broke out a
kilo of cocaine and is snorting lines on the coffee table," he says.

"One of the things that's misunderstood a lot is who addicts are," Schmidt
says. "Addicts are very often functional people in the community. They're
very often employed. Those people usually seek treatment first.

"If addiction takes hold in the projects or low-income neighborhoods where
few people are employed, those people seek treatment last."

Pryde says that when she asked Schweighart where he would like the proposed
methadone clinic located, he told her, "Urbana."

Schweighart said he has no recollection of making that statement, and says
the real problem was that Speagle and Pryde weren't sensitive to community
fears about increased crime that could be caused by the clinic, especially
dealers who might gravitate to the area.

Kalman says dealers hang out near the Duane Dean Center in Kankakee, and
many clients sell their Sunday take-home doses of methadone.

Jones admits there are probably dealers who find new buyers among the
addicts at Duane Dean, but he also says "there are dealers in front of
churches, schools, court houses. They're dealing everywhere."

The clinic has strict rules for those caught dealing or buying drugs.

"If we catch it," Jones says, "they're going to jail and (will) definitely
be kicked out of the clinic."

Kalman thinks people's fears of dealers at the proposed clinic in Champaign
are overblown.

"I don't understand why they felt it was so dangerous," Kalman says,
"because for the three or four dealers, there are 30 to 40 people who want
to get better."