The Howard County Health Department plans to open a methadone clinic next spring at its offices on Columbia Gateway Drive, in east Columbia, to treat recovering heroin addicts, the county's health officer said this week.

The health department's planned methadone clinic will be the second such clinic in the county, the other being a private clinic on Route 40 in Ellicott City.

Methadone is a drug, taken orally, that blocks heroin receptors in the body, preventing cravings and heroin highs. The drug is controlled by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and is administered by a machine that distributes discrete amounts, county Health Officer Dr. Peter Beilenson said. Methadone is used by addicts as a maintenance drug to wean themselves off of heroin, he said.

Beilenson said the methadone clinic is needed in order to fill in a hole in the county's treatment of addicts and add to the county's "continuum of care."

The county already has extensive outpatient counseling services for recovering drug addicts, he said, and some heroin addicts are prescribed the heroin substitute buprenorphine.

The clinic's staff would work in concert with the health department's drug treatment counselors, who would refer patients to the clinic if needed, Beilenson said, and the clinic will not be limited to county residents.

Although the clinic will be located within the health department's offices, it will be run by a private firm called SRR, said Beilenson, who added that the county will oversee the clinic's operations and track its treatment results.

Before launching the clinic in spring 2010, the firm must obtain a license from the state Alcohol and Drug Abuse Administration, Beilenson said.

He noted that the clinic's location, at 7178 Columbia Gateway Drive, is not in a residential area.

Past proposals scuttled

Other recent attempts to open methadone clinics in Howard County have proven controversial.

In 2003, a Pennsylvania businessman abandoned his plan to open a methadone clinic in an office park in Oakland Mills after village residents and leaders complained about the clinic's opening near schools and homes and vowed to fight it with candlelight vigils, protests and pickets.

That same year, plans for a private clinic in Elkridge were scrapped after residents argued it would threaten their safety and hurt property values. The residents held community meetings to organize opposition, laid plans to picket the owner's Montgomery County home and distributed fliers at homes and businesses throughout the area denouncing the clinic.

Heroin does not rank high in the county's addiction problems, Beilenson said.

Alcohol and marijuana rank highest as the most abused drugs in the county, Beilenson said. He also said he has not noticed much fluctuation in the number of heroin addicts in the county over the last several years.

Sharon Sopp, a spokeswoman for Howard County General Hospital, said the number of heroin overdoses handled by the hospital has remained constant over the past four years, though she declined to release any figures.

Heroin overdose cases tracked by the county's Department of Fire and Rescue Services fluctuated between 200 and 235 a year the past four years. Emergency responders have used the drug Naxolone, which is frequently used to shock patients out of heroin overdoses, about 100 times a year in that time period, according to department data.

The number of heroin and cocaine arrests in the county also has fluctuated in recent years, with 198 arrests in 2007, 259 arrests in 2008, and 253 arrests in 2009, according to county police Lt. Glenn Case.

Howard County's proximity to Baltimore makes heroin accessible to the county's addicts, Case said.

"I would imagine that a lot of the people who are using heroin in the county are driving out of the county to get it," Case said.

Mike Gimbel, Baltimore County's former drug treatment czar -- who now runs a private firm dealing with addiction issues -- agreed with Case that Howard County's location makes it vulnerable to heroin trafficking.

"Howard County is sitting in the middle of a major drug trafficking area," Gimbel said, adding that Howard's location along the I-95 corridor makes it vulnerable to heroin coming from New York and Florida.

Additionally, over the past several years, heroin has made inroads into middle-class communities where young people are less afraid of it, Gimbel said.

"Heroin does not have the reputation it used to. It's become very middle class, very upper-middle class," he said. "You look at all the rock stars. It's become very Hollywoodish."

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user comments (2)

user zenith15 says...

Many people use methadone to treat addictions to painkillers, not just for heroin addiction--in fact, in many clinics over 75% of the population is there for Rx drug addiction. It is a standard misconception that clinics cause an increase in crime or a decrease in property values--studies show that neither of these things are true. In fact, a DECREASE in crime is what occurs. Methadone is NOT a "heroin substitute" as this article states. In fact, it substitutes for the brain's natural endorphins which are often permanently knocked out of production by long term opiate use/abuse. It enables the pt. to function normally--they are not high nor impaired in any way once stablilized on the medication. Most methadone pts. are indistinguishable from the average citizen. Methadone is the most effective treatment for opioid addiction available today.

Posted 12:34 PM, 11.12.09 | Permalink

user pericles says...

Love the "studies show that neither of these things are true" assertion. The studies that are most often cited (when one cares to actually give citations) date from the 1970s and 80s. A much more recent study suggests that there is no decrease in crime. See A. Rothbard, "Revisiting the effectiveness of methadone treatment on crime reductions in the 1990s.";Department of Psychiatry, Medical Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.

Posted 7:27 PM, 11.15.09 | Permalink