Methadone to the madness

The words of Mark Sisti, the State’s celebrated drug lawyer, were chilling and telling, “you have tons of heroin, tons of methadone, tons of crystal meth…your area has gone cosmopolitan,” he told a Sun reporter who was covering a drug related story this week. And this a mere month or so after the Conway Selectmen made it clear they were not interested in addressing this potentially devastating problem for the Conway area by considering a methadone clinic in our midst. They simply didn’t want to hear it. But do they really think it will go away?

In an afternoon of googling methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) in an effort to discover the effectiveness of clinics, I found no information that proved or disproved that existing clinics contribute to crime in the communities they serve. But the statistics that have been gathered and recorded across the nation over the last decade prove that the clinics work.
What is certain is that heroin and other opiate addictions can be and are controlled by substituting methadone and because the substitute is taken orally, proliferation of diseases commonly transmitted by multiple user needle use, is significantly contained. So too is the transmittal of sex related diseases and HIV/AIDS.

The main difference between heroin use and methadone treatment is that the heroin “user” suffers from “uncontrolled, compulsive, and disruptive behavior,” then of course they “crash” which involves physical pain and sickness that is so wrenching to the physical system and psyche that only a hair of the dog treatment will soothe the effects of withdrawal. It’s sort of like staying drunk to avoid getting a hangover.

Methadone relieves the user of the heroin hangover as well as eliminating the euphoric rush and subsequent high that produces the bizarre and often illegal behavior associated with addiction. It has the additional benefits of being legal and cheap which reduces the need to commit crimes in order to afford the next round. This last becomes important to the taxpayer when their home is not broken into and robbed, police are not put at risk, courts and jails are not jammed with these somewhat problematical characters that are most likely going to go through withdrawal while at the Crowbar Motel.

But let us not sugar coat this semi-solution. The reasons Robert Potter wanted to build one of his clinics here will make most people not want it in their back yard. The closest other clinic is in Rochester. That would make Conway a sort of Vegas for “biscuit” or “dollie” seekers. (I forsee a Sun headline: Valley of the Dollies.) Since the treatment (there is no actual “cure”) requires daily communion because you never really get off the stuff, people will be moving closer to the area. And just because these new neighbors are not necessarily a threat to the community, in terms of crime, studies show that the employment rate amongst those in treatment does not improve after addiction has abated. In all likelihood a certain collegiality will develop and they could start hanging out with each other. It also makes sense that since the rate of recidivism is one out of five, there will be some bad apples looking for mischief requiring more police.

But, mark Mark Sisti’s words, there is, right now, “tons” of the stuff around. And because there is no clinic, no one is getting help. They are out there looking for ways to finance the next fix and if you have never gone through withdrawal or not read Trainspotting, you have no idea what these people will risk to get their mitts on the appropriately named “junk.”

The Daily is replete with mayhem and misdemeanors that are drug related. Not long ago we read that seven quite young local people were arrested for beating almost to death a former compatriot who finked on a pot deal. It was reported that a 20 year old girl who was involved had urged the others to kill the guy. Anybody who doesn’t think that Sisti’s words are haunting and prescient has their heads buried deep in the sand.

I talked to Dennis Robinson who runs the County Jail and he said that he was as freaked out as I was that “kids” that age could be involved in crime of that magnitude. “But it is on the rise and it is coming this way,” and he know of what he speaks. It is his job to book them through the jail and report the statistics while the press is writing it all down.

He could also tell you that $13 a day for methadone seems like a bargain versus the cost of incarceration. For starters an inmate must be provided with three meals a day at $3.15 each. That’s $9.45. If the inmate is on meds, the County has to cough up. If he or she has to be transported they get to eat at Mickey Ds on your dime. The citizenry pays for their laundry, the guard’s salaries and benefits, the debt on the building and on and on and on. Then, they are let out so they can do it all over again. About one in five of everyone sitting down at the Hotel Robinson couldn’t get enough of the place the first time around. It’s clean, they’ve got TV, you don’t have to work, free clothes and it’s just so darn easy to get used to. Which is good for them, bad for you, because they are going to spend a lot of their life in there, or some place like it, and it’s your treat.

Potter was going to pay for the proposed clinic and the methadonee would have to buy their own daily dosage. If such a facility attracts the “wrong kind” it would have to be dealt with. But we already have the “wrong kind” and if you believe Sisti, who makes a fortune knowing the ins and outs, it’s going to cost us a fortune in the future.

I suppose it’s a good thing in some ways to have our heads in the sand; all the easier to pick our wallets.