Pubdate: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 Source: Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, PA) Copyright: 2006 The Times Leader Contact: http://www.timesleader.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/933 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) A CALL FOR MORE TREATMENT OPTIONS FOR DRUG ABUSERS ONE BABY LIVED and one baby died. They were related not by blood but by circumstances. They were victims of their mothers' heroin addiction. And both illustrate the need for more addiction treatment in our area and the understanding that anyone's son or daughter, no matter how good the family or upbringing, can become a drug user. We first met little Kayla Leo in a story published in March. Before Kayla's birth, her mother had been a heroin addict for about eight years. Roslyn Leo put her parents through hell. At one point, the former Wyoming Area cheerleader and overachiever lived in a car in Philadelphia and used water from public toilets to inject heroin. Her parents never knew from where or when she might call. But the day came when her father hung up on her. That bit of tough love seemed to be a turning point that led Leo to the Choices Recovery methadone clinic in Plains Township. The treatment, her family and her baby's father became her lifeline. The horrible consequences of drug abuse continue, with a pregnant woman, Cari L. Chapman, killed in Franklin Township last month and an Old Forge man charged with killing two people in Avoca last weekend in a drug deal gone bad. A New York City medical school professor in 2002 called this area's overdose deaths an "epidemic." Choices fought its own battle against neighbors and municipalities who made a "not in my backyard" argument before the clinic opened in April 2004. The clinic had to appeal Plain Township's denial in county court to win approval to open. Government and law enforcement officials quashed an Allentown-based methadone clinic's attempts to enter the Wyoming Valley and Old Forge in Lackawanna County in 1999. The Choices Recovery Program waiting list was a testament to the area's need for methadone treatment. Those local physicians who offer another treatment for certain opiate addicts, buprenorphine, have been swamped with patients and have long waiting lists. Chapman was a mother-to-be with a drug problem who was killed last month. The coroner said she was less than 16 weeks pregnant when she was shot and killed along a creek in Franklin Township. She had gotten out of a vehicle to find a place to go to the bathroom. And police said she told a friend that she wanted "to find some water to ingest heroin." The 22-year-old was shot three times, twice in the abdomen and once in the chest. Authorities have charged Patricia Lee Stark with killing Chapman and her baby. No one can undo the pain, suffering and violence that drug abuse spawns. For every addict, there are plenty of innocent victims. But with more treatment, there can be a little more hope. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman