Opiate addicts turn profit for dealers and treatment providers

It was almost five years ago that Dr. Thornton Merriam, head of Acadia’s drug recovery clinic, mentioned in passing that the hospital planned to open a methadone clinic in Bangor.

The doctor, who had been treating drug addicts most of his life, was stunned by the enormity of the state’s opiate addiction problem and said all other traditional treatments failed to help.

Though not a fan of methadone, the doctor had resigned himself to accepting the treatment as the only thing that held any promise.

The backlash that ensued over the next several months was monumental. The city virtually divided itself into pro-methadone and anti-methadone camps. It was a bitter battle fueled by speculation that a clinic would attract opiate addicts from around the state, turning the city into a crime-riddled drug haven.

Once all of the grandstanding, name-calling and rancor subsided, however, what the city was left with was a focused and level-headed committee that worked with Acadia to ensure that the clinic would affect the city as little as possible.

The location of the proposed clinic was objectionable, and Acadia agreed to change it, moving it instead onto its own Stillwater Avenue campus.

By all accounts, the clinic operates today essentially invisibly. The crime rate has not gone up, drug addicts are not hanging out in parking lots along Stillwater Avenue, and, according to Bangor police Chief Donald Winslow, there has been virtually no impact on the neighborhood.

But the state’s drug problem persists, and where there are customers, there is a business somewhere searching for a profit.

Bangor perhaps didn’t realize at the time how fortunate it was that a reputable nonprofit hospital would be running the methadone clinic – a hospital that answers to a board of directors made up of its own community members.

Now, and I suppose inevitably, the commercial for-profits have come to town, and there are a host of new concerns.

How well will these clinics be regulated? How well will they be policed? Will clinic management be responsive to the community if concerns arise?

Lynn Costigan, director of new development for Colonial Management Group, which would operate the clinic proposed for the Maine Square Mall in Bangor, told a reporter recently that she had “never had this much debate over a facility.”

She better get used to it. We just had a referendum vote on where to locate our police station, for goodness’ sake. Mainers forgo high-paying salaries and many amenities to live here. We trade that other stuff for a certain way of life, and we protect it fiercely.

Bangor Councilor Dan Tremble said he thought the ordinance governing methadone clinic locations restricted them to medical office buildings.

“I thought that’s what we did when we tightened the ordinance a couple of years ago, but apparently it wasn’t because the ordinance does allow them at that mall location,” he said.

Whoops.

Stand-alone, commercial clinics concern officials and residents for a variety of reasons. Chief Winslow worries that addicts will hang out in the mall parking lot and that drug dealers will target them as potential customers.

The same battle, by the way, is being waged in Rockland, where residents are literally protesting in the streets against a proposed clinic there.

The bottom line is that while new drugs are proving to be better solutions than methadone, they are not being used. In the meantime, more and more addicts are searching for help, and currently methadone seems to be the best answer for many of them.

These latest battles should be a wake-up call to local officials to revisit their ordinances to ensure that clinics that do open do so in appropriate locations. The state also should come forward to offer some support for these communities and some assurances that it, too, will help regulate and police the clinics and respond swiftly should trouble develop.

There were two clinics in Maine two years ago. Now there are four, with a fifth opening any day in Calais and two more proposed for Bangor and Rockland.

One thing is certain: The opiate problem persists. The market is growing and profitable, whether you’re a heroin dealer or the operator of a methadone clinic.

Contact Renee Ordway at rordway@bangordailynews.net.