Methadone clinic fight looming

Canada’s largest operator of methadone clinics has set its sights on a London neighbourhood struggling to revitalize, The Free Press has learned.
Ontario Addiction Treatment Centres, that claims to treat one of every three methadone patients in Ontario, wants to open a clinic on Bathurst St. along a commercial strip that frames the city’s SOHO community.
Its intentions came to light after it hired prominent London lawyer Alan Patton to fight a temporary ban on such clinics imposed in November by city council.
“353 Bathurst Street (is) ideally suited to meeting the needs of its patients,” Patton wrote in a notice of appeal obtained by The Free Press.
Council adopted the one-year ban in the hope city staff could draft new rules and limits on clinics to avoid problems associated with an already existing clinic a stone’s throw from Beal secondary school.
But the hoped-for window may be closing, at least if Patton prevails at an Ontario Municipal Board hearing that may come as soon as March or April.
That prospect has drawn concern from employees at a Canadian Tire just next door. The store, located near two big homeless shelters, already suffers from more than the normal share of theft, employees said.
They fear long lineups of addicts may make matters worse.

http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2011/02/01/17117791.html



Some worry that more clinics might make theft worse in a given area.

This is silly logic.

As much as I dislike them, even I will admit that more methadone clinics means less people stealing to get illegal drugs.  This is simple economics, you don't steal what you can obtain for free or at low-cost.  One wouldn't buy drugs illegally and risk jail-time - which means horrible withdrawals for an addict - when one can get obtain them from doctor or pharmacy at relatively low prices.

I'm not saying people wouldn't steal to get enough money to purchase methadone, but methadone is cheap and so people stealing to get money for methadone instead of other opiates will steal considerably less.

This is actually a good thing.

Every time some addict gets caught stealing to fund his habit (maybe because he wasn't on methadone), I have to pay to keep the punk imprisoned.

That comes out of my wallet.  It comes out of your wallet too.  Frankly, I'd rather have my tax dollars subsidize their methadone than spent locking them up.  Just look at these numbers:


The cost of incarceration
Correctional service expenditures for 2004-05
were $3 billion. The cost to the public;
• Federal prisoner $260 per/prisoner/per day
• Federal female prisoner:
$50,000-$350,000 per prisoner/per year
• Provincial prisoner: $143 per prisoner/per day

(source www.vcn.bc.ca/august10/downloads/behindbarsleaflet08.pdf)

$260- $143 a day for imprisoning them,  versus $5 dollars per day spent on methadone.

That is $1825 per year - Considerably less than the cost of incarcerating a drug addict.


Times are tough for everyone right now. The global economy is going through the worst depression yet.


If the Canadian government or even local city government can use methadone clinics to protect people from crime and save them money then they ought to allow them to be built.  The only excuse I can think of is how methadone makes people 'feel'. It is an appeal to emotion, not logic. 

Know what I don't want to feel?  I don't want to feel lighter in the wallet than I have to. I don't want to feel like my city is increasing the likelihood that I'll be a victim of robbery or theft by some addict, all because they couldn't gain access to the drugs they need to keep them off the street. 

Build more clinics, I say.

It lowers crime (the kind with actual victims) and having the clinics around gives seniors like myself something to whine and piss and bitch and moan about.