City aims to disperse methadone clinics

The battle over London methadone clinics rages on.
A new proposed policy for future clinics was released on the City’s website late Tuesday. It recommended spreading small-scale clinics around the city, instead of having a cluster of larger clinics downtown.
The clinics use methadone, a synthetic drug, as treatment for patients addicted to opiods such as oxycodone and heroine. Currently, there are a handful of methadone treatment clinics across the city, including a large-scale clinic on Dundas Street, causing varying levels of controversy over the past few years.
Last November, city council passed a ban on any new methadone clinics from opening until they had time to plan for where and how the clinics should be situated. A private city planning company, Scott Burns Planning Consultants, was hired to collect opinions from methadone treatment patients, medical professionals, city officials and private citizens around the city. They released the results of their research in a discussion paper in March.
The paper suggested the city provide education and options for other forms of addiction treatment.
“As one addiction counsellor noted, ‘users want access to other treatment options, like withdrawal management rather than the liquid handcuffs,’” the paper read.
Eric Lalande, City planner, explained the proposed policies will still need to be reviewed by London’s Built and Natural Environment committee when they meet next Monday, and that they’re really just early recommendations.
The main points of concern were “people loitering outside, the ability to attract drugs and other types of illicit activity in the area. That was brought on mainly by residents and neighbours of the area that were telling council these concerns,” Lalande said.
In response to these concerns, Lalande said they’ve looked for locations in the city that are spread out and away from residential areas, rather than a major downtown hub, like clinic 528 on Dundas Street.
“It doesn’t mean that [central clinics] will create the problems but there is a potential to attract these types of problems,” he said.
By scattering smaller clinics around the city, the proposed policy is intended to dissimenate methadone treatment and make access to treatment easier. That’s something London doctor Gurpreet Sidhu, who treats patients for addiction using methadone, thinks should be a focus.
“I think they’re helping a lot of needy people and keeping the community safe,” he said. “I’ve seen such remarkable recovery in these people, getting back to a place where they’re functioning. It’s like day and night.”
While he wasn’t surprised to hear that residents and neighbours near clinics are concerned, he said it’s mostly based on a lack of understanding.
“I think it’s mainly because there’s a stigma,” he said. “People don’t like patients with mental illnesses, they don’t like patients with addiction problems or alcohol problems. They just want to put them on a boat and send them off to sea.”