BANGOR – Charlie Murray quickly corrects himself when he calls Acadia Hospital’s methadone treatment program a “clinic.”

“A clinic is what we would have had if we didn’t fight it,” said Murray, a member of the program’s community advisory board, which is winding down its work with the understanding that the once-dreaded program is having little, if any, impact on the city. “The way it’s been going right now, it’s perfect.”

A year ago, city officials were not so confident, and Murray, a resident of nearby Hempstead Avenue, was among the program’s most vocal opponents.

He wasn’t alone.

The prospect of a methadone clinic – especially as originally planned at the hospital’s relatively rural facility on Indiana Avenue – divided the city like few issues before it, conjuring up fears of heroin addicts flocking to the city to get their methadone fix in order to calm their cravings for the dangerous drug.

Methadone is a synthetic narcotic used to treat those addicted to opiates, a class of drugs that includes heroin and many prescription painkillers.

But it has been nearly nine months since the first patient took the first dose of methadone at the hospital’s bustling main campus on Stillwater Avenue, and many – including hospital officials – are crediting the clinic’s hospital setting, at least in part, for its success.

“At some of the stand-alone clinics, there has been the tendency for people to loiter around, and that was one of the concerns,” said Scott Farnum, the clinic’s administrator.

He said the Acadia program, because of its high visibility, has been able to avoid many of those problems. “Here, it would be extremely difficult to do that,” Farnum said. “There are just too many people around that could see if something was going on.

“I understand people had concerns and they raised some legitimate issues,” Farnum said, praising the community involvement in the sometimes volatile process. “It’s because of that input that we have a better program.”

Indeed, police officials and neighbors confirm that the methadone program has maintained a low profile since its June opening.

Bangor Police Chief Donald Winslow said Wednesday that there have been no neighborhood complaints, and opiate use in the city has flattened out in recent months.

“We’re not ready to claim victory yet,” said Winslow, who also noted that there has been no evidence of methadone diversion. “We’re still dealing with the heroin issue with the young people, but what’s happened is it’s rare that we get information about new dealers or new users.”

In fact, the chief’s recent reports to the community advisory group have been short and sweet, according to City Councilor Nichi Farnham, the committee’s chairwoman.

“So far, so good,” said Farnham, whose committee will meet next in mid-May to listen to a preliminary report from a Texas researcher commissioned to study the clinic’s impact on the community.

But after that, the committee is looking to curtail its monthly meetings and get together on an “as needed” basis, said Farnham, who stressed that she still would like to receive the quarterly reports from Acadia.

The program, licensed to handle up to 150 people, now serves 121, 73 male and 48 female. Nearly 80 percent of the patients are from Penobscot County, with about 20 percent making the trip from Washington County, which has seen its level of opiate abuse double from 1999 to 2000 but drop slightly last year.

Only two patients have dropped out since the clinic’s opening, according to information provided to the committee by the hospital.

The program’s director said there were no plans to move the clinic, which has worked so well that it is expanding at Acadia’s main campus. Since its opening, the program has grown from about four employees to 15, Farnum said.

The program’s success was welcome news to Murray, who said he was heartened by its ability to settle into the hospital’s Stillwater Avenue campus.

Murray said he hopes Acadia officials keep the clinic in the more secure hospital setting, and warned that any effort to move the program elsewhere in the city surely would be met with resistance.

“If they do, we’ll go to war again,” Murray said.