Pharmacist wants to Inconvenience Methadone Users - Says it will help

ST..JOHNS (CBC) - Access to illicit methadone could be curbed if a replacement program for narcotics experts was moved out of pharmacies and into clinics, a veteran St. John's pharmacist says.

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Brian Healy says methadone which is given to people trying to solve addictions to powerful painkillers like OxyContin is winding up on the street because of how it's administered, through 48 different pharmacies around the province.
Moreover, Healy, who does not dispense methadone, says pharmacists are usually too busy to provide the services that recovering addicts require.
"You have someone that has an addiction problem. Dumping them every day to a pharmacy and saying, 'Here you go, next' is not going to solve the problem," Healy told CBC News.
In most circumstances, participants in the methadone program are required to consume the drug in front of a pharmacist.

http://ca.topmodel.yahoo.com/s/cbc/110121/canada/canada_newfoundland_methadone_clinic_pharmacist121

Well how about that.

This pharmacist believes that reducing the ability of people to access their methadone will help them. His mind clearly operates at level where it produces concepts behind the ability of this common man to grasp.

Let's take this genius idea to it's logical conclusion and apply it to everyone else:  We should have insulin clinics - those diabetics are always in danger of dying of something or other, I know.  And how about a clinic for heart medications? Those people need monitoring, it isn't right to not give them the monitoring they need.  Oxycontin? Why not make people line up for other opiates and narcotics?  Let's do it for everything.

No.. this won't happen.  This is the kind of thing we can only get away with when we do it to those people.

People can seriously consider making things difficult for those people and then go about doing it - it is not like the methadone addicted will protest and there aren't many people who'll take their side. Hell, there aren't even a few.

This frightens me to see.  I know that when people find it acceptable to inconvenience one group of people because of a particular non-criminal aspect of that group, then it is not long before other groups are targeted.
 That pharmacist could not have gotten away with saying that regular painkillers - the ones people go on methadone to get off- he's not saying people should be made to go to clinics for those.  No, he wouldn't have been let off so lightly if he said that.

There are veterans of the Afghanistan war attending these clinics, single mothers trying to work a job and raise both kids, people just trying to get by with their handicap and people like this pharmacist want to make it even harder for them. That is shameful, and more so as it is under the guise of 'helping them'. The man even went so far as to equate attending a pharmacy to 'dumping' them.

Who knows, maybe the fellow is just bad with analogies.

So that is why I have decided I will do a Mitzvah.  I have been speaking to methadone patients from around the city of London and I have been taken by their plight.  They are more abused than any other class of person and they have no one to speak for them.

 Certain racial/ethnic groups are associated with higher crimes rates, imagine restricting pharmacy access because of that.  In essence that is what is being said about methadone patients, that they are more likely to engage in illegal activity in the form of methadone diversion.  You can imply that about methadone patients, but just try saying it about some guy who eats several oxycontin tablets a day because of his bad back and watch what happens (*Hint: Your lawyer will be happy).

Kid Uses Methadone Illegally - Mother Wants Changes

The mother of a teen who died of a methadone overdose and the leader of an organization that helps people with addictions are raising questions about the province's methadone program.

Michelle Mitchum, whose son Colton died after taking methadone that wasn't prescribed to him, is calling on the province to do more to ensure the powerful drug doesn't end up in the wrong hands.
"I am trying to get some changes made so this doesn't happen to someone else's child," Mitchum said.
Mitchum said she has been angry since Colton, 16, died seven months ago, but she's trying to turn that anger into action.
Methadone is used to try to wean people off serious drug addictions — some people use it indefinitely to keep them off drugs such as OxyContin or heroin.
Mitchum is scheduled to make a presentation to a provincial government round table on methadone in St. John's Thursday.
Ron Fitzpatrick, the executive director of Turnings — a program that helps people who've been released from prison, said the province needs to expand the methadone treatment program by finding more doctors willing to offer the drug.
Fitzpatrick said denying recovering addicts methadone will compel some of them to commit crimes to get drugs.
He said more access to methadone will keep communities safer.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2011/01/20/nl-methadone-questions-120.html#ixzz1Bfh3waJT

 So there you Have it.

Her Son uses methadone illegally and now his mother wants 'something to be done'.

And who could blame her, If this were my kid I'd be angry too and I'd want changes too. I would appeal heavily to emotion.

But what exactly could be done?  Pharmacists already have ways to make sure patients don't hold their methadone in their mouth, or sneak it out in a vessel of some sort. People with take-home doses have them because they are trusted and their urine is tested, so a lack of methadone metabolites would show.

Under the current approach, I think that the only things left to do are to inconvenience those with take-home doses - and heavily monitor the pharmacists filling the prescriptions (pharmacists have a higher than average tendency to become addicts, and methadone has a street value of $1 per milligram; so there is a tempting profit motive). Anyhow, new security measures would result in longer wait times and would seriously disrupt the lives of those people who are in the late stages of recovery and who are working steady jobs. It would also inevitably result in less taxes being paid and more people on the dole.


Frankly there would be a whole lot of suffering and for not much more than the short feel-good moment that comes with realizing that things have been made even more difficult for those people. It just is not worth it.

Drugs don't kill people anymore than pencils cause spelling errors or cameras cause child porno.  If someone dies as a result of their abuse of drugs then it is because they killed themselves, even if they did so unintentionally.  Now if this kid died as a result of misjudging the dosage - or being told it was a lower dose than it was - then that is largely as due to how methadone is distributed, in diluted liquid form. If some other mode of delivery, such as uninjectable pill-form methadone became available, this would reduce the ability of pharmacy staff to commit theft and would ensure that in those inevitable instances where the drugs make it to the hands of drug abusers, that at least those drug abusers would know the dose of the pill; just as they know the doses for the other opiates they abuse.

It is so simple...  That the distribution of methadone in pill-form has not already been implemented leads me to think someone likes to make things difficult for those people.

That young man might still be alive had methadone been distributed in non-injectable pillform.  But it isn't and he's gone and the buck always stops somewhere.  If she accomplishes nothing else, I hope his mother finds out who that is. 

My heart goes out to her.

Whiner Caught Out by Methadone-Prescribing Doctor

 Now the following is all just my opinion:

I like to whine as much as the next guy, but when I'm whining I do my best not to lie. Frankly, I find it spoils the experience and that whining is done best when it doesn't include lies.

So it saddened me to see a whiner get caught in a lie by - of all people - a Methadone-prescribing doctor by the name of Craven, who dismantled the whiners letter with ease.

Here is the whiner's post:

I walk past the methadone clinic on Dundas St. almost every day on my way to school and I find the condition of the area disgusting. Aside from the grass being totally destroyed and garbage everywhere, the general area leaves room for improvement. I would like to see the clinic moved to a larger, more private area.

http://www.lfpress.com/comment/letters/home.html?p=37360&x=letters&l_publish_date=&s_publish_date=&s_keywords=methadone&s_topic=&s_letter_type=Letter%20to%20Editor&s_topic=&s_letter_status=Active&s=letters

 Wrong - There is no grass on that property, as the good doctor pointed out, whilst also addressing the loiterers:

The letter Move methadone clinic (June 7) refers to a "disgusting" property on Dundas St., which has "grass totally destroyed and garbage everywhere" and with patients who do not seem to be improving.

Clinic 528, a London methadone treatment centre is located at 528 Dundas St. We have no grass and dispose of all garbage in a locked container behind our facility. Our clients are not allowed to loiter in the vicinity of our building.

The writer of this letter is likely referring to an unrelated property a few doors to the east of our building, where visitors are allowed to loiter in a grassy area for extended periods of time. 

http://www.lfpress.com/comment/letters/home.html?p=37437&x=letters&l_publish_date=&s_publish_date=&s_keywords=methadone&s_topic=&s_letter_type=Letter%20to%20Editor&s_topic=&s_letter_status=Active&s=letters



This person was complaining about garbage being everywhere, but I haven't noticed a difference in the amount litter near Craven's Clinic relative to any other places along Dundas street in the downtown area. 

Maybe the garbage is more obvious when people know there is a methadone clinic in the general vicinity.   Kind of like how those little reefer dime bags stick out on the ground when one walks past a high school.

Right Kids?

And what is with this guy being able to determine patient improvement...  

...See that is why when one whines, one must be realistic. The person who Dr Craven rebutted would not have been so vulnerable had he simply refrained from hyperbole or taken the time to do some fact-checking..

 Let that be a lesson to all of us who like to write into the london free press to whine about that one clinic.

Doctor Craven is probably going to see your letter if it gets posted by the free press, so don't give him any more an advantage than he already has. Or do, and then we can be entertained by him as his letter picks your complaint apart like he did to that poor fellow up above.

In fact, If I find any more like it, I'll post them here.

Thirty Thousand Methadone Addicts - That Will Be The Number Soon

Folks, I don't know if this is good news or bad news but check out the numbers increase regarding the amount of people on Methadone:

Methadone treatment has become increasingly popular in Ontario. In 2007 there were 17,690 methadone patients in the province, according to the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons.
In 2009 that number had risen to 25,396, and in 2010 it is expected to rise to close to 28,000.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/06/21/ottawa-methadone-treatment.html#ixzz1Av2O3hGW

So what will the number be in 2011?

Now for my opinion:

I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that by 2012 Ontario will have about thirty-five thousand methadone addicts/patients.

And whatever increase might occur in London, the existing clinics are going to have to deal with - at least for a year ( as a ban against building Methadone clinics has recently passed).


Of course, regular pharmacies can still be built which distribute the drugs many addicts get hooked on - so the junkies who aren't interested in going into recovery shouldn't have to worry about being affected by increased demand.  If there was a ban on building regular pharmacies such as those where people get morphine, oxycontin, valium, speed, needles, along with insulin and the like people would whine about human rights.

Any debate about that would surely have more than one on-his-way-out councilor standing against banning the building of those pharmacies - people have to get their drugs, right?

I'd write a sternly worded letter to the mayor if they ever tried to ban the building of the kind of pharmacy that decent people such as myself use.

Something about this is strange though isn't it. A man can take painkillers for an injury and so long as they are prescribed people don't seem to care.  But once that man gets prescribed methadone because he wants to get his life back on track he becomes one of those people and he just cannot expect to have the same access to his medication as he did before  Now such a man can expect to wait in a long line with a bunch of criminal addicts, which I'm sure is beneficial to his recovery. Right?

I've seen the line-ups at these clinics and frankly they look degrading to the people in them.  I cannot imagine any other kind of pharmacy letting such a thing occur, but I suppose these clinics have a large population of addicts to deal with.  More clinics would reduce these degrading lines -  which if past trends are anything to go by - are only going to get longer.  Plus the longer the lines are, the more unsightly I find them.


And if the lines are so big that they are literally wrapping around the outside of the clinics, then that increases the exposure of the neighborhood to these addicts and decreases the ability of clinic staff to monitor the patients, and catching them if they try to deal drugs.  The clinics ban those who the catch buying or selling drugs, but still the activity does occur.

Isn't decreasing exposure one of the goals of banning these clinics?  If there were sufficient numbers of clinics, the addicts could be hidden from view inside the building, and maybe the places wouldn't look the way they do.  If their weren't addicts waiting around outside, alot of these places would look like normal pharmacies.

Now addicts will be more visible and have to hang around even longer at the existing clinics.  As far as the drug dealers are concerned this means a greater concentration of customers will be present for greater periods of time.

Consider also that drug dealers probably don't like methadone clinics, as they 'steal' potential customers away.  Now the illegal opiate dealer's primary competition has been weakened for a year.  Frustratingly, this weakening of the competition will probably result in a minor rise in profits for our prohibition-ducking criminal underclass.

That's just the way it is.

London Imposes One-year Ban on Building Methadone Clinics, Good Or Bad?

A one-year ban on new methadone clinics was approved by council Monday night, despite the impassioned plea of one departing politician.
Amid ongoing concerns from Old East residents over the problems created by a Dundas St. clinic that serves 700, council won’t allow any new ones as city staff review ways to control where such facilities are opened.
In his final meeting on council, David Winninger was the lone vote against the plan — and urged his colleagues unsuccessfully to shoot it down.
“I feel very strongly that the planning committee and (planning) department has gone in the wrong direction,” Winninger said.
“It sounds non-productive. It sounds insensitive to the needs of people who need methadone.”

http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2010/11/15/16159351.html


What wonderful news...

My opinion:

Now existing clinics will have to deal with any increases in the populations of those seeking help.  This will result in longer wait times and might not be of benefit to anyone but I do feel better for some reason.  

Sure, more clinics would reduce the amount of addicts seeking drugs on the street and might save some  lives - but I kinda get a warm feeling in my heart when I hear that things are being made difficult for those people.  Who wants addicts in their neighbourhood anyways?  Clearly that want is more important than the needs of people who are trying to get off drugs. Clearly.

Another thing is when I hear people complaining about the addicts around Clinic 528 and how they use that place to deal drugs, all the while totally ignoring the coffee house on the corner where the majority of the drugs appear to be dealt from (unless you count the methadone pharmacists as drug dealers - which is your right as a Canadian).  Anyhow, that always cracks me up, because 1) I know nothing will be done about that and 2)the blame will be tossed on those addicts at the clinic.  It reminds of those situations that you hear about where a combat pilot or cop becomes totally focused on their target to the exclusion of all else, including real threats.  I forget the name for that, but when I see people complaining about that particular methadone clinic whilst totally ignoring the 'coffee shop' I am reminded of it.


These places have so many drug dealers around them, but why am I not seeing a police presence? Where are the arrests?  London's police are great, but wouldn't nailing those addicts who are dealing drugs give a nice bump to their stats?  Maybe they would end up with a nicer budget if they went after the easy prey - if predatory drug dealers could be referred to as such. 

Having a few undercovers hanging around the clinics and 'coffee shops' might go a long way towards taking down or deterring the dealers - which is the reason most people give when they want to decry a methadone clinic and yet lack the balls to say it is because they just don't like the addicts.

"I don't have anything against addicts, it is the people the clinics attract I don't like"

And they'll say that with a straight face. . .


*I'm going to snag an interview with some methadone patients and find out they think about this decision. That is if they even know it happened.  You know what addicts are like.

Right?