Pubdate: Fri, 31 Dec 2004
Source: Roanoke Times (VA)
Copyright: 2004 Roanoke Times
Contact:  http://www.roanoke.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/368
Author: Laurence Hammack

BOTH SIDES PREPARE FOR IMMINENT OPENING

The methadone clinic will "provide responsible services" and be "a good
neighbor," a company official said.

Roanoke's methadone clinic - long awaited by drug addicts seeking treatment,
long dreaded by neighbors fearing crime and traffic - should be open within
the next few weeks.

A city business license was renewed this week for the Roanoke Treatment
Center on Hershberger Road. The clinic will begin operations gradually over
the coming weeks, said Joe Pritchard of CRC Health Group, the
California-based company that has been planning the project for the past
year.

Nearby residents, who have promised a legal challenge to the clinic's
location, say that bringing recovering addicts into a residential area is
bound to create problems with drug dealing, crime and traffic congestion.

Supporters of the clinic, which will dispense daily doses of methadone to
addicts of opium-based drugs such as heroin and OxyContin, say the form of
treatment has a long record of success with little adverse impact on the
surrounding area.

Which side is right? That question is not likely to be answered on opening
day.

"We're going to do this very slowly," Pritchard said of the startup. "People
won't notice any more activity than what they may have seen over the past
month" at the clinic, near Hershberger and Cove roads.

Patient assessments could begin next week, he said. It could be an
additional 10 days before the clinic receives its first shipment of
methadone. No more than 10 patients will receive the drug when it's first
available. Within a month, about 25 patients are expected to be enrolled.

By the end of its first year, the clinic should be treating between 100 and
150 patients, Pritchard said. Not all of them will visit the clinic each
day, and many will arrive at 5 a.m., when there is little traffic or other
activity in the neighborhood.

Plans for a gradual startup were made after CRC delayed the clinic's opening
to allow more time to meet with residents and others affected by the plans.
A citizens advisory board has since been created, Pritchard said, and the
clinic has had time to hire a security guard and consult with police about
increased patrols in the area.

"What we want to do is show everyone in the community that not only will we
provide responsible services, but we're also going to be a good neighbor,"
Pritchard said.

That offers little comfort to one of the clinic's closest neighbors.

"I am really concerned," said Della Millner, who can see the clinic's brick
building from the kitchen window of her home. Millner fears that traffic,
drug dealing and other unsavory sights will soon be thrust on elderly
residents of the neighborhood and young children on the way to several
nearby schools.

"I'm a nervous wreck," Millner said Thursday.

Millner also echoed a theme raised by many clinic opponents: While Roanoke
County denied a business license last year for a proposed methadone clinic
in a predominantly white neighborhood, the city was quick to approve a
clinic in a mostly black neighborhood.

"It looks like they're dumping it here on us," Millner said. "They need to
put it over there in Hunting Hills."

Jeff Artis, a community activist who has vowed to picket the clinic when it
opens, could not be reached for comment.

Opponents have also hired an attorney, Michael Bragg of Abingdon, to fight
the proposal in court.

Bragg said Thursday that he hopes to file a lawsuit in the coming weeks that
will question whether the city followed its own zoning ordinance in allowing
the clinic. Among other things, Bragg said, the clinic should have been
required to apply for a special zoning exception.

City officials have said that changes to the ordinance that required such a
step took effect only after the clinic received its business license in
October 2003.

After that license expired at the end of the year, CRC requested a renewal.
Commissioner of the Revenue Sherman Holland delayed action until the clinic
received approval from the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental
Retardation and Substance Abuse Services; the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration; and the state Board of Pharmacy. Once those regulatory
hurdles were cleared, Holland renewed the licence this week, Pritchard said.

Opponents say that once the first business license expired, the city should
have forced the clinic to start over - subjecting it to the new city rules
and a state law since passed that bars methadone clinics from locating
within a half-mile of any school or day care center. CRC has maintained that
it had a vested right to the site by virtue of its earlier business license.

Holland did not return three calls made to his office by The Roanoke Times
over the past two weeks. 
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MAP posted-by: Josh