In supporting clinic, Baltimore police reaffirm policy shift
Tired of the heroin and crime surrounding his Northeast Baltimore church and treatment center, the Rev. Milton Williams said Thursday that he plans to open the city's first "open access" clinic, which will hand out methadone within 15 minutes to any addict who walks through the door, The Sun's Meredith Cohn reports.
Williams said defiantly that he will open the doors of his Turning Point clinic on North Avenue on July 5 to possibly 100-150 addicts a night — though he still lacks approval from state and federal regulators.
But he has the support of at least one city agency - The Baltimore Police Department, which sent a high-ranking commander and a member of the public affairs office, who said this about the agency's evolving view of drugs:
Detective Donny Moses, now a spokesman for the department, said he spent five years in the narcotics division and during that time "had a change of heart" about arresting addicts.
"I must have arrested a million and one people addicted to heroin, and I thought there had to be a better way," he said. "I was thinking this was someone's daughter or son and someone was praying for you. … The Police Department is no longer interested in locking up all the addicts."
Lt. Col. Ross Buzzuro from the police commissioner's office, added, "We can't arrest ourselves out of this problem. We're seeking those wreaking the most havoc on the city. Our mission has changed somewhat."
Comments
THANK GOD! It is truly unbelievable how long it has taken the BPD to realize that arresting addicts en masse IS NOT the answer! Treatment & preventitive services work! Most of the general public does not realize that after taking methadone one cannot become "high" using other opioids (such as heroin). But addicts know this, & therefore will not waste time/money/resources trying to get "high" on dope. If they come for methadone, then they are sincere about getting/staying clean.
Posted by: LaLa Henson | June 24, 2011 12:51 PM
It is unbelievable that it took to BPD this long to support open access clinics and speak out against the mass arrests of addicts. Medical treatment for the masses works and is desperately needed. Arresting addicts is generally counter-productinve because they simply create problems for these people when they try to find work after they find the courage to find treatment and get heatthy again. Punishing sick people only creates more problems. Sick people need doctors, not just police. The sooner addicts get treatment the better the odds of recovery, but addicts need long-term, and convenient treatment - for cheap or preferably for free.
Posted by: B'more | June 24, 2011 1:40 PM
Great... except people on methadone stay addicted to methadone. Some stay on it for years and years, draining the economy. Get them clean and get them jobs. Otherwise they deserve to be in jail. Stop living off the government. If that's all they want to do, ship them to Canada!
Posted by: Anonymous | June 24, 2011 1:48 PM
We need more positive rehabilitation programs like the Helping Up Mission, not to provide them free drugs. You give them drugs you are increasing the feeling of entitlement and along with it, more crime. Free methadone is like free heroin; it's a short-term answer for a long-term problem. Additionally, if there are no perceived consequences to drug use, there is no reason NOT to use, especially when you have generations of children and families growing up on welfare and seeing substance abuse regularly, which is more the rule in Baltimore than the exception.
Posted by: B'real | June 24, 2011 3:14 PM
People are no more "addicted to methadone" than they are addicted to insulin when they are diabetic.
It's a maintenance drug. You take it for life if you need to, and hopefully you live a life of productivity.
Certainly better than jailing addicts and releasing them still addicted.
Posted by: Anonymous | June 24, 2011 4:20 PM
The comparison this past poster made to insulin is the way society needs to start viewing drug abuse if we ever want to make progress. Thinking along the lines of the "get them clean and get them jobs" poster, on the other hand, is a good way to keep things they way they are and let the problem get worse and worse. Just keep talking about how people on Methadone are draining the economy and about how they should be shipped to Canada; that level of ignorance contributes to the problem.
Posted by: Mike | June 24, 2011 10:55 PM
When I was a social worker I had so many uninsured clients who wanted methadone treatment but they couldn't get it because they couldn't afford to pay out of pocket. Often, the clinics that offer methadone for reduced prices (based on income) were not accepting new clients because the need was so great. It was awful telling people who were motivated to seek treatment that they couldn't get methadone for the above reasons. I wish Rev. Williams the best of luck with this endeavor!!
Posted by: sharon | June 25, 2011 12:34 AM
All natural state agricultural product should be legal by default... and (re) legalized generally.
All pharmaceutical product should be (re) medicalized... clean, safe, low cost, non-black market product dispensed by Pharmacists to patients managed under the direction of a Physician.
Add a few social workers into the mix too for those inclined toward "recovery" or who probably need other help managing their lives otherwise...
...but FIRST get ALL the cops and ALL the courts out of the middle of it all.
Done.
Posted by: MrRational | June 25, 2011 10:00 PM