Birminghan Post-Herald, October 27, 2004
Re: JUDGE RULES AGAINST METHADONE CLINIC by JOSEPH D. BRYANT.
Reporter Bryant,
My name is J.R. Neuberger and I am part of an organization called The National Alliance of Methadone Advocates. I am also a methadone patient and have been since 1988. It has saved my life.
And the uproar in Shelby County reminds me of a story I heard while moderating a roundtable on methadone issues at the American Association for the Treatment of Opiate Dependency (AATOD) two years ago in St. Louis. A woman spoke up about the uproar in her State when her clinic was holding public hearings concerning their possible move to a new, larger location. It was the typical NIMBY (Not in MY Back Yard)type protest with a hundred residents in attendance. And when they found out that this clinic was only moving two blocks away from where they had been operating for over a decade, and that this clinic had already been in their back yard for these years with NO adverse events or effect, the foolishness of this protest became apparent.
This is a medical treatment for a medical condition. Do the opponents of this program think there is no addiction problem in Shelby County?? Such an assertion would be foolish by any examination of the data available. A well run methadone program IMPROVES a community and is no different than ANY medical facility. People get their medicine and go off to lead productive, tax-paying lives. This versus an active addiction with its resultant tax on medical resources and criminal justice systems. Those are the TRUTHS of methadone treatment, all substantiated by volumes of research.
Regards,
J.R. Neuberger
Delaware Chapter: NAMA