BANGOR (AP) – A Rhode Island-based firm is taking steps to open what would be the third methadone clinic in Bangor.

“We’re hoping to be open by the early spring,” Denise Howard, Discovery House’s executive director for Maine operations, said Thursday.

The Discovery House clinic would be located in a former confectionery company building in a city industrial park. A company official believes there’s enough demand to serve about 200 patients despite competition from other clinics.

The new clinic would be Maine’s seventh. Bangor is already the only community in Maine with more than one methadone clinic, said Kim Johnson, director of the Maine Office of Substance Abuse.

Methadone clinics also are operating in Calais, Waterville, South Portland and Westbrook, Johnson said. Two other clinics are pending in Portland and Rockland.

Discovery House has obtained a city building permit for an estimated $22,000 in renovations to Bangor building in which it wants to operate the new clinic and has applied for state and federal permits. It has also been given a certificate of occupancy from the city. Asked why Discovery House was opening a clinic in Bangor, Howard said it was “primarily just to provide access. There’s clearly an identified unmet need.”

Acadia Hospital, also in Bangor, accepts insurance and serves about 700 patients and has a waiting list of about 60 people, according to Johnson.

Florida-based Colonial Management Group, which does not accept insurance, is serving another 165 patients at its clinic in Bangor, Johnson said.

Discovery House could accommodate both insured patients and those who will pay as they go, Howard said.

A 2003-04 national survey estimates 30,000 Mainers need but lack access to treatment for drug addiction.

“Ten years ago, it didn’t look like that,” Johnson said.

Methadone is widely used as a therapeutic substitute for illegal narcotics such as heroin and prescription medications such as morphine or OxyContin. Successful methadone therapy allows an addict to resume normal life activities such as finishing school, holding a job and raising children.

Critics say that methadone, itself addictive and potentially lethal if misused, simply substitutes one drug habit for another and contributes more to the drug problem than it resolves.

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