BREWER – City leaders would like at least six months to study the side effects of methadone treatment facilities before any are allowed to open within the city.

An emergency moratorium banning the opening of methadone clinics is on tonight’s council agenda. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. in council chambers. If approved, it would put into place a six-month ban on any methadone or other drug treatment facility openings.

Methadone, a synthetic opiate, is used to treat addiction to heroin and other opiates. The drug has its supporters, who say clinics are crucial to curbing addiction, and critics who say the clinics do nothing but breed more crime. Bangor is home to three of the state’s nine methadone clinics.

Bangor City Council’s government operations committee also will discuss the issue tonight during its 5 p.m. meeting at Bangor City Hall.

The Bangor committee is exploring possible guidelines for future expansions at the three clinics, and how to keep the number of clinics in the city at three.

If the proposed Brewer moratorium is approved, a committee composed of the police chief, council members Archie Verow and Michael Celli, City Manager Steve Bost, City Planner Linda Johns, Code Enforcement Officer David Russell, and City Solicitor Joel Dearborn would be created and charged with developing reasonable regulations governing possible locations and operations specific to methadone clinics in Brewer.

The committee will “review the implications of such a facility-clinic on, among other things, the health, safety, welfare, traffic, law enforcement, land use, aesthetics, property value and environmental impacts on the city,” the proposed ordinance states.

There are no proposals to open a clinic in town, Mayor Manley DeBeck said at the July City Council meeting.

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