BANGOR – With just two weeks to issue its final report, a panel studying the need for a methadone clinic here looked for common ground Monday in a debate that has divided the community for months.

“This is the time when the rubber hits the road,” said Dr. Jack Adams, a member of Acadia Hospital’s board of directors and co-chairman of the City Council’s Special Committee on Opiate Addiction. “It isn’t going to be easy. There are some difficult issues we have to address.”

The six-member panel has met several times in the last three months, gathering information and considering potential solutions to what all agree is the region’s growing heroin problem.

At the Monday meeting, city officials suggested that should a methadone clinic be placed in the city, a community advisory group should have some input into the treatment guidelines.

“Public policy has to have a role in this,” said City Manager Edward Barrett, who further suggested that the controversial drug should be a last resort in treating opiate addicts.

Acadia representative Scott Farnum said he welcomed the idea of a an advisory group, but was wary of its role in creating or modifying the rules for a specific medical treatment.

“The regulations out there are based on scientific and clinical practice,” said Farnum, director of the Acadia Recovery Community, which would house the clinic. “I don’t think you want to base them on anything else … including local public policy.”

The opiate committee, comprising three members each from the City Council and Acadia Hospital, was formed after the hospital applied in February to operate a methadone clinic out of its Indiana Avenue facility.

Methadone is a synthetic narcotic used to treat those addicted to heroin and other opiates including prescription painkillers. For that purpose, methadone is only available at highly regulated clinics like the one planned for Bangor.

News of the clinic, proposed by the state Office of Substance Abuse, immediately sparked a debate in the community, with local law enforcement calling for a two-year moratorium.

Methadone proponents cite the drug’s documented success in treating opiate addiction while opponents call the clinic a magnet for drug users and drug-related crime.

In response to the community’s reaction and the committee’s formation, the Maine Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services agreed to delay the licensing of the Bangor clinic until January 2001.

The committee is charged with issuing a set of recommendations to the state agency by Dec. 15.

Agreeing on those recommendations may prove difficult, say committee members, who have yet to come together on some tougher issues.

They include the immediate need for a clinic, its potential effect on the community, its location and the benefit of the treatment itself.

The panel is set to discuss those issues at its next meeting, set for 5 p.m. Dec. 5 in the City Council chambers.

Many who support the delay have cited the likely approval of the less-addictive alternative, buprenorphine, which has also proved successful in treating opiate addiction. Some favor the drug over methadone because buprenorphine could be dispensed at a doctor’s office and need not be taken daily.

Buprenorphine, while a promising alternative, has yet to gain Food and Drug Administration approval. Even when approved, the drug would not be a complete replacement for methadone, which would still be needed for severe addiction problems, state officials contend.

The Bangor clinic would be the state’s third, with the other two in Winslow and South Portland.