Many of my regular readers know that I am a passionate advocate for methadone maintenance treatment (MMT), so it will come as no surprise that I have voiced my support for the establishment of the new Chilton County Treatment Center. I base my support on personal knowledge of the operation by the same owners in nearby Shelby County. I know the doctors, nurses, counselors and patients… I have seen the good work of the people there who care and I have seen the lives saved by what they do. I am there every week leading a recovery group… I know these things for a fact.
Unfortunately, facts are often hard to come by when MMT is discussed in the public forum. For instance take the recent letter by District Attorney Randall V. Houston addressed to the State Health Planning and Development Agency stating his opposition to the center, it’s at best misguided and by all means not factual.
“I see this methadone treatment facility as an opportunity to foster the addiction of prescription narcotics and have a negative impact on the local community.”
The patients who come to the clinic are already addicted to prescription narcotics and illicit substances. The facility is being established to treat a problem that ALREADY exists and if it helps even a small percentage it will be a positive influence in the community.
”…my office has seen an explosion of Grand Jury cases where citizens are addicted to methamphetamine, Lortab, Valium and methadone, to name a few. The heroine [sic] addiction, which this facility claims to treat, has not been a serious problem for law enforcement in my judicial circuit. However, the addiction to the very drug this facility administers is cause for alarm to me.”
Although the facility will not actually treat those addicted to mythological and legendary women (no Lara Croft addicts) MMT is an effective therapy for heroin and also the prescription pain pill addiction scourge that the DA has pointed out as a significant problem.
”As I see it, the establishment of a methadone facility in Chilton County will do nothing but compound the problem and give addicts an addition source for acquiring this drugs”
So what’s the next step… shutting down all the doctors and pharmacies that are the current source of these narcotics, and yes even most of the methadone? The US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) conducted a recent study that overdose deaths attributed to methadone correspond to the increased supply prescribed for pain, not addiction treatment!
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”The urgency to build and run an additional facility is most likely driven by monetary gain and does not take in account the risks to law enforcement as well as the general public.
So I am to assume from this statement the DA does not receive a salary? As far as risk to law enforcement and the general public decide for yourself. Does someone ingesting a legal dose of medicine daily sound more dangerous than cruising for illicit drugs, doctor shopping, and the lying, cheating, and stealing that often accompanies illegal drug use?
I will not lie to you; there are abuses of the MMT system. I am sure that there also bad treatment facilities out there run with nothing but profit in mind, but I know for a fact this is not one. The same could also be said for DA’s, like Mike Nifong there are always exceptions to the rule. The fact is that over the last decade pain prescriptions have doubled, and methadone use in pain management has increased 175%. This is the problem we have in our communities, not the treatment centers that are established to combat the coinciding addictions. Jack Kalin, a head toxicologist at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, an agency that has the morbid task of explaining drug deaths for the official record states the problem rather succinctly:
“Medication has become sustenance”, he said. “We’re sending bad messages, that medicine is the cure for everything.”
Another way to combat this problem of pain pills and addiction in general is to educate the public with facts, not scare tactics or political strategies. This is a serious problem in our community and the treatment centers are part of the solution. My advice to the politicians of state, if you are seriously interested in the welfare of the citizens then try a little bit harder to understand what the experts are saying such as in the recent Birmingham News feature titled “Too little treatment, too many addicts”.
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I will not even try to dispute. Unlike the DA in this case, you are voicing an opinion backed with experience, not a political statement based on misconceptions.
I also think that sobriety and recovery are true gifts in life, and that’s why I am at the clinic every week spreading the recovery word. Pain killer addiction has become a scourge here in the South, doctors have been handing out these things like candy for years and there are those “patients” that have become adept at scamming these doctors. Society is just now realizing the problem as rampant, yet the stigma of drug addiction is blinding the public from the realities of the situation.
I do not advocate MMT as the final solution, but instead as the first step toward recovery. Most of these people do not have the opportunity to go to rehab so MMT is their only choice. Sure there will be people who never take another step, but I am there for those who want to try.
prescription drug abuse relief and I have some experience in that and within a rehab situation only then should it be used for heroin relief because I have seen over the years of my sobriety that methadone just becomes the next drug of choice for those attending daily clinics to get it. Sobriety is a gift that is wanted and should not be used as a means to move from one form of addiction to another…just my opinion.
Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion
about spelling because I am a repeat offender myself, but that one just seemed funny so I pointed it out.
I love any post that performs a brutal smackdown on misspellings. There may be some addicts out there somewhere with a heroine addiction, but like you, I doubt anyone would prescribe methadone to treat that.
The law is often an ass . . .
Politics makes it a bigger ass . . .
but not with the demagoguery of the issue.
I am sorry to hear about this, we are surrounded of stupid limited people that take the lead and do things by the letter. In such cases human kind doesn’t really matter, it’s quite paradoxical but it’s the true. Again, I am sorry to hear about this…
The biggest problem with methadone Clinics are Clients that refuse to stop using other drugs. such as POT BENZOs COKE ALCOHOL. All the methadone given in Clinics in alabama is liquid. (98% of the Methadone in volved in street arrest is in pill form.) Probaly Stolen from a Grandma on Hospice or Home Health or gotten from a private Phy or a Pain Clinic. Methadone treatment can and does work but just like drug free treatment it works if you work it. Methadone is a cruth to use until you are ready to deal with the pain and learn how to walk again. Unfortunatly it is very profitable to keep people on methadone for as long as possible. So this too often overides the genuine concern for a clients health and happiness. If I were to work in a clinic it would be my goal to help each client to stabilize on methadone then begin a slow steady detox and when problems or pain come up i would help that individual learn how to deal with them if possible with out going back up on methadone or using other drugs. But that is why i will probaly not ever have a job in methadone. I know a lot of people who work in clinics and I would put them up against any staff at any drug free program. There are things on both sides that I do not agree with but they are both fighting the same battle.and we should not have to fight the legal system just because the legal system does not fully understand!
I will give props to the SCTC though because they allow my weekly recovery classes and know that I advocate tapering when appropriate.
The thing that really gets me though is that sometimes the politicians and those in the legal system do understand and refuse to learn more becacuse the facts just don’t fit their agenda.
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