Methadone treatment exacts too high a cost

We have been reading the Finding a Fix column since it started. We feel this is a much-needed resource and a forum where members of the community can share their thoughts and their experiences with substance abuse. We are writing to express our feelings about using methadone to treat opiate addiction.

Before she got lost in drugs and alcohol, Ashley Joy McKague was an honor roll student at Central High School in Corinth and had been recognized for her artistic talent. She died last year at the beginning of May, just a few weeks before her 20th birthday. According to the state coroner’s office, the official cause of her death was acute methadone poisoning.

Ashley’s substance abuse began when she was a young teenager and it got worse over about three years. Toward the end, she was injecting heroin. She tried to quit, and with our family’s support and encouragement, she attended outpatient counseling for several months. At one point, she was on the waiting list at a methadone maintenance program, but she died before she could be enrolled.

From what we have learned, Ashley was probably trying to control her cravings by self-medicating with liquid methadone that she purchased off the street from “friends.” The toxicology test revealed that she hadn’t taken any other form of drug in combination with the liquid methadone.

Our stand on the methadone clinics is a negative one. We feel that most of the community does not understand this powerful drug and we’re not sure the clinics fully do either. While doing research on methadone, we have learned that it can help heroin addicts, which everyone learns when a company wants to open a new clinic. What these companies don’t make us understand is that in order for this drug treatment to be safe and successful, it has to be closely monitored between doctors and patients.

Some of our young family members in the Bangor area have repeatedly been offered the opportunity to purchase liquid methadone. The reason this drug is so readily available is that some methadone clinic patients are allowed to “take home” their doses instead of taking each day’s dose under the supervision of the clinic staff – and some of these take-home doses end up being sold on the street. Considering how closely doctors and patients must work together in order for this treatment to be safe and successful, and acknowledging the potential for methadone to be sold for illicit use, the notion of “take home” doses seems medically and socially irresponsible.

There are other signs of social irresponsibility that we have read about in the newspaper. There was an article about a woman who had just received her methadone dose at the clinic and thought she had lost her 6-year-old daughter downtown. After talking with police, she remembered her daughter was at home and safe. In the same article, the chief of police also stated that there has been an increase in auto accidents caused by people nodding off while driving after they have received their methadone doses at the clinics.

What is most disturbing is the 178 drug-related deaths that occurred in 2005, compared to 19 such deaths recorded in 1997. Seventy-five of these deaths were methadone-related, the majority from the pill form that is prescribed for pain. But like the liquid form that is used in clinics to treat addiction, the pills end up on the street for sale.

In our opinion, the methadone clinics and some doctors in the Bangor area lack accountability. How many methadone-related deaths does the community have to endure before something is done?

Some people support methadone as a treatment for heroin and claim it can be successful, but many others have suffered from the harmful effects of this drug. If we have documentation that there were 75 methadone-related deaths last year, then why don’t we have any idea how many opiate addicts have beaten their addictions using methadone?

There are other ways to treat addiction, such as Narcotics Anonymous and the drug Suboxone. In our opinion, these alternatives to methadone offer our community safer and more successful ways to treat addiction. As a society, we need to realize that the most important factor is the attitude and determination of the addicts themselves as they seek to change their lives for the better.

In conclusion, we feel that even one methadone-related death is one too many. This is a treatment option that comes with too many problems to be an effective option for our communities. It has contributed to an increase in traffic accidents and crimes, and has become a lethal, new street drug that kills our children.

Karen McKague, Corinth – Ashley McKague’s mother

Brenda Pooler, Bangor – Ashley’s grandmother

Cheryl Wood, Monson – Ashley’s aunt

Nicole Bartlett, Kenduskeag – Ashley’s cousin