Pubdate: Sun, 02 Feb 2003
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2003 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Pam Belluck
Webpage: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/02/national/02ADDI.html
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)

USING METHADONE IN MAINE, FOR GOOD AND AT TIMES BAD

PORTLAND, Me. - When Michelle, a 24-year-old addict, was looking for a fix, 
methadone, with its slow-action and minimal high, was not her first choice. 
Her preference was heroin, and she said she was so hooked on it that she 
had made her 4-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter "sit in the other room 
while I shoot up."

But recently, Michelle and her husband, Shannon, who spoke on condition 
that their last name not be used, found that they could sometimes obtain 
methadone more easily than other drugs.

"I've done methadone when I needed something and there was nothing else 
around," said Michelle, who, along with her husband, a cocaine addict, 
recently enrolled in a treatment clinic. "On Halloween night, for me to be 
able to take my kids trick-or-treating, we did 30 milligrams apiece and 
then we were able to go trick-or-treating. I'm thankful that I took that 
methadone or my kids wouldn't have had Halloween."

In Maine and elsewhere, methadone has slipped quietly onto the drug abuse 
scene, filling in when drugs like OxyContin and heroin are in short supply. 
Most indications are that, like OxyContin a few years ago, methadone first 
became a problem in rural areas and has been spreading to other parts of 
the country, law enforcement officials say.

In an increasing number of cases, methadone abuse has proved deadly. Some 
victims have rarely, if ever, used it before. Sometimes a victim was given 
methadone by someone who had been prescribed the drug for pain or was 
enrolled in a methadone clinic, a friend trying to help an addict unable to 
find other drugs.

The Portland police say Seth Jordan's death was emblematic of many they 
have seen in the last year. In April, the police say, Mr. Jordan, 27, was 
given his first dose of methadone by Scott Darling, a patient at the CAP 
Quality Care methadone clinic in Westbrook, a Portland suburb. Mr. Jordan 
was found dead in the hallway of his apartment building.

Mr. Darling has since been charged with manslaughter, one of several cases 
in which prosecutors have pressed criminal charges against clinic patients 
suspected of providing methadone to overdose victims.

Bob Jordan, Mr. Jordan's father, said his son had struggled with mental 
illness for several years and took illegal drugs with acquaintances like 
Mr. Darling. Still, Mr. Jordan said, "I was totally stunned that Seth would 
have taken that methadone and that he would have died from it."
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