Pubdate: Tue, 09 Sep 2003 Source: Charleston Daily Mail (WV) Copyright: 2003 Charleston Daily Mail Contact: http://www.dailymail.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/76 Author: Deanna Wrenn, Daily Mail Capitol reporter Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) TREATING ADDICTION IS COSTLY Officials Say Methadone Program Long, Number of Patients on the Rise LEWISBURG - West Virginia drug addicts pay more than $13 million a year to private companies for methadone treatment, and at least some are having a hard time finding the $4,500 a year it takes to be in such a program. That's a problem since methadone - an addictive drug that doesn't make people high and is used to wean addicts off more harmful opiates like heroin or OxyContin - is not a drug that recovering addicts can quit without any negative effects. "Methadone is not something you can stop taking overnight," said Genise Lalos, director of addiction services for Prestera Center in Huntington. Places like Prestera, which don't provide methadone but monitor patients as they go through detox for a variety of drugs, typically keep patients for just three days. Getting off methadone can take more than a month, and places like Prestera can't hold the patients that long. Patients who quit methadone treatments are then turned away from other centers and may end up back on the streets or in behavioral hospitals. "There's no place else to put these individuals," Lalos said. "We recommend they go back (to the methadone programs) but they say it's cost prohibitive." The typical methadone treatment, which costs $12 to $12.50 a day at the state's seven clinics, brings the private companies running the state's clinics millions of dollars a year. For National Specialty Clinics, which runs six of the seven clinics in West Virginia and handles about 3,000 patients, the $12.50 a day covers all the company's expenses and still leaves enough left over to turn a profit. But Steve Gnass, the company's CEO, said the price for treatment is "the best bargain that ever hit the state." "They come from $300-a-day habits," Gnass said. "For $300 a day, they do some really, really nasty things. That means virtually anything from taking food off the table from children to stealing to prostitution." Gnass told lawmakers at an interim legislative meeting Monday in Lewisburg that most methadone patients stay in the program for 12 to 18 months. At $12.50 a day, that's $6,750 to get through treatment, plus a one-time $60 program entry fee. "That's a lot of money," said Delegate Don Perdue, D-Wayne. The profits for the private companies running the clinics are likely to increase as the number of methadone patients and the number of clinics grows. Currently, West Virginia has clinics in Martinsburg, Parkersburg, Clarksburg, Huntington, Charleston, Williamson and Beckley. Gnass said Mercer County has a "major problem," and more people in the Beckley clinic come from that county than the Beckley area. "There are just swarms of opiate-addicted people there," he said. Gnass said rural areas in the southern part of the state often have problems with OxyContin addiction, while the northern part of the state has a problem with heroin addiction. "Pittsburgh is feeding the northern part of the state with almost pure heroin," Gnass said. Since methadone treatments require coming in every day for a dose of the drug, which is a liquid and looks like cough syrup, recovering addicts have to drive to the nearest clinic every day. Gnass said some patients have to get up at 3 a.m., drive for two hours to the nearest clinic, take their dosage, drive back home another two hours and then go to work. Gnass is looking at opening more clinics, but some neighborhoods don't like the idea. "The perception, at least to some members of the community, is the drug addict hanging out on the corner," said Sen. John Unger, D-Berkeley. "People do have that perception." Gnass said he was surprised himself about how many people in West Virginia come in for methadone treatment. He said his clinics treat people from 20 years of age to 72 years of age, and people with jobs ranging from coal miners to attorneys to people without any job at all. Gnass said his company originally estimated treating only 1,800 patients by now. "It's just been astounding," he said. "Astounding and scary." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake