OFFICIALS: NO PLAN TO OPEN METHADONE CLINIC

Law enforcement officials in Northern Kentucky say addiction to opiates
continue to be a problem here, but there are still no plans to open a
methadone clinic anywhere in the area. In February, Covington paid a
$140,000 settlement to MX Group, of Pittsburgh, which claimed in federal
court that the city discriminated against its effort to open a drug
treatment facility for drug addicts there.

The organization tried twice in the 1990s to locate a clinic in the city,
but its zoning application was rejected both times.

There have been no other efforts to set up a methadone clinic locally,
leaving an outpatient center in Lawrenceburg, Ind., as the closest place for
those addicted to opiates in Northern Kentucky to get into a methadone
program. St. Luke Alcohol and Drug Treatment Center in Falmouth also treats
such addicts, but not with methadone.

The methadone program in Cincinnati can only enroll Ohio residents.

"We haven't seen any spike with the drug problem, but it continues to be a
major problem," said Capt. Tim Hayes of the Kenton County police department.
"It has always been a problem."

Dr. David Suetholz, the Kenton County coroner who lost his prescribing
privileges for a year because he was writing methadone prescriptions to
addicts under his care, told The Post last week that Northern Kentucky
addicts are emblematic of a problem nationally, that the growing number of
addicts seeking treatment is overwhelming the methadone clinic system set up
to minister to them.

Methadone is used to curb the cravings of people addicted to heroin,
morphine and other opiates, including the painkiller OxyContin. That drug is
marketed as a time-release medication, but abusers have injected it or
snorted it the point that its misuse has become rampant in some areas,
including eastern Kentucky and other locales in Appalachia.

While the attempt to open a methadone clinic locally was unsuccessful, such
clinics have been welcome additions in other parts of the state.

More than 10 methadone clinics have opened in Eastern Kentucky over the last
few years to help fight the OxyContin epidemic, almost all without
opposition, and five such programs have started in West Virginia.

"People were able to accept it because it is a needed service," said former
Paintsville Mayor Robin Cooper, who saw a methadone clinic come to his town
before he left office last December. "We've got a problem in eastern
Kentucky that has to be dealt with."

Cooper is now assistant to Covington City Manager Greg Jarvis.