BANGOR (AP) – Brawling, harassment, intimidation and drug dealing have created a chaotic atmosphere at Acadia Hospital’s methadone clinic, according to some clients, and the staff rarely intervenes.

Those clients told the Bangor Daily News that such anti-social and illegal activities in the state’s largest methadone program occur regularly, posing a threat to their recovery.

Hospital administrators say that kind of behavior is symptomatic of the disease of drug addiction, and that taking a hard line against it would force too many clients out of treatment and undermine the goals of the program.

Danielle Eames-Powe, 22, and her boyfriend, Bruce Raymond, who are both enrolled in the program, said money and illicit drugs change hands in the clinic’s waiting areas and parking lot while the staff looks the other way.

“A lot of (the clients) just make up their drug histories, so the clinic thinks they have a really big problem and gives them high doses of methadone,” Eames-Powe said. Some clients who are entrusted with take-home doses sell their methadone to buy more potent drugs for their own use, she said.

Fistfights and shouting matches often erupt in the long hallway where dozens of clients may wait 45 minutes or longer to get their daily dose, Eames-Powe and Raymond said.

About 700 people are enrolled in the Acadia program, which substitutes a safe, monitored dose of liquid methadone for the dangerous and illegal street opiates abused by addicted clients.

“We’re congregating 900 people (in methadone and other drug addiction programs) who are here because they have drug problems,” said psychiatrist Paul Tisher, the hospital’s chief medical officer. “It’s what they’re here for. It’s a disease. We’re not policemen.”

Tisher expressed doubt that a police presence or armed security guards would keep clients in line and said it might dissuade some addicts from seeking help.

“Many people are ambivalent about treatment,” he said. “Our goal is to reduce as many barriers as possible. An armed guard would deter people who might be ambivalent but who are moving toward treatment.”

Bangor police have received a growing number of complaints of drug dealing and disruptive behavior on and around the hospital’s campus, said Deputy Chief Peter Arno, but in most cases the reports cannot be confirmed.

“It’s difficult because Acadia is private property,” Arno said. “If I were to send a car over there today to sit and watch in the parking lot, they would ask us to leave. It’s happened before.”

Kim Johnson, director of the Maine Office of Substance Abuse, said she was unaware of client concerns about Acadia and noted that other large methadone clinics in Westbrook and South Portland appear to operate without such distractions.

“People dealing drugs in the vicinity of a clinic threaten their own recovery and everyone else’s,” Johnson said.

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Information from: Bangor Daily News, http://www.bangornews.com

AP-ES-06-09-07 1337EDT

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