ELLSWORTH – As surrounding communities and the state at large continue to weigh the merits and perils of methadone clinics, Ellsworth is taking steps to be ready if a provider seeks the city out.

At its March 19 regular meeting, the City Council will consider a six-month moratorium on the contentious clinics to give city staff more time to prepare.

“Basically, the city has been doing a review of its ordinances and, out of that process, it was noticed that there was no appropriate [zoning] category for methadone clinics,” City Manager Stephen Gunty said Monday. “The thinking was to buy ourselves a little time to fully research our ordinances to see that the city’s needs are covered.”

Gunty said the move was not a response to any direct inquiry – although he did admit the city has been approached in the past – but more a reaction to what is going on throughout the state.

“We had some interest within the past year, but it wasn’t anything serious,” Gunty said. “This is more about what is going on around us. The city wants to be sure that if such a facility were sited, it would be appropriately zoned.”

Methadone is used to wean addicts off heroin and other opiates, but the practice of dispensing the drug is sometimes controversial.

“In my opinion, you’re just substituting one drug for another,” Hancock County Sheriff William Clark said. “My other problem is that methadone clinics are a for-profit operation. I’m always suspect of that.”

Ellsworth Police Chief John Deleo said he doesn’t have any problem with a clinic, per se, but he worried about where it might be.

“If there was a clinic in Ellsworth, the key would be the location,” Deleo said. “Certainly if one were put in a residential area, the safety of neighbors would be a concern.

“But the need is certainly there,” he said.

In nearby Washington County, the town of Cherryfield enacted a six-month moratorium in August 2006 in hopes of stopping a Rhode Island-based firm from opening a clinic.

It may have worked because that same firm, Discovery House, announced plans last month instead to open a facility in Bangor, which already has two active clinics.

Discovery House also runs facilities in Calais, Waterville and South Portland.

Clark said that while the need is there, the Ellsworth area is not as desperate as Washington County.

“Rather than trying to get many more options, why not get behind what we already have?” he said. “I question how many people are really helped by methadone clinics.”

Clark said one of the things Ellsworth already has is the Open Door Recovery Center, an outpatient substance abuse treatment facility.

Executive Director Barbara Royal has been helping drug addicts since 1984 and said she absolutely opposes methadone.

“If we send a message to addicts that they can get better with a pill, we’re doing them a huge disservice,” Royal said. “I think [clinics] are a setup for disaster.”

Some providers are starting to use other, milder drugs such as Suboxone in place of methadone. Suboxone stops the craving but doesn’t provide a high the way methadone does, according to Royal.

“We are using Suboxone and even that I struggle with,” she said. “We believe that recovery is internal.”

The public will have the chance to weigh in on the proposed moratorium on March 19, but City Council members are expected to make a decision that night.