October 15, 2024
The following editorial appears in today’s Albany Times Union.
Editorial: Beyond the methadone clinic
Improving access to opioid treatment will take action at the local, state and federal level.
By Times Union Editorial Board,
Many people in recovery rely on access to methadone, the gold standard for treating opioid use disorder. But where should they go to get it?
In Albany County, Camino Nuevo has been the primary answer for the better part of 10 years. The clinic on Albany’s Central Avenue administers the medical treatment, which eases the symptoms of opioid withdrawal. But the clinic has been blamed for increased crime nearby, city officials have said that its location in a dense residential neighborhood makes it difficult to enforce laws against loitering and trespassing, and cars dropping off and picking up patients on a busy street can cause traffic snarls. A plan to move Camino Nuevo west, to a more spacious location with a parking lot, has met strong resistance from businesses that don’t want to be its neighbors – including, earlier this month, a lawsuit against the city planning board, which had given the move its unanimous approval. Businesses in the Pine West Plaza, off Washington Avenue Extension, don’t want loitering, trespassing or other crimes up near them, either.
That’s understandable. But the problem remains: The clinic has to be somewhere. So, where?
The first answer is that local government has to keep on with the hard work of making unpopular but necessary decisions. Since Albany’s planning board gave this plan its unanimous approval, that means board members see it as feasible. What can the city and county do to support the existing businesses and address their concerns? Those conversations should continue even as the court weighs this challenge.
But there’s much more work to be done here, and it starts by rethinking the scope of the problem.
As Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan noted in a letter to the planning board in support of the clinic’s move, about 85% of Camino Nuevo’s clients live outside of Albany, and more than 60% come from other counties. Opioids are ravaging lives and families across the Capital Region and throughout upstate New York. Albany is being asked to bear too much of the burden. We need changes at the state and federal level that will bring methadone to the people who need it, where they need it.
Earlier this year, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration modernized its methadone rules for the first time in more than 20 years, giving clinics greater leeway to let patients take methadone home with them. For some patients, that might mean having to visit a clinic once a month instead of once a day. New York is updating its rules to reflect these changes, which could take some pressure off of the brick-and-mortar clinics that provide the medication.
Of course, self-administering methadone is not the best option for everyone who needs it, so we’ll still need clinics. Indeed, methadone is available only from specialized clinics, not from regular pharmacies.
Mobile methadone clinics are one option: Instead of forcing patients to find their way to the clinic, why not bring the clinic closer to the patient? According to an analysis by New York Focus, a New Yorker outside of New York City has to travel an average of 15.1 miles to a methadone clinic, and 28 counties have no opioid treatment sites at all. New York state has touted plans for 11 “mobile medication units” — but as of July only two are on the road, and both are in NYC, which already has most of the state’s opioid treatment infrastructure. What’s the holdup?Or, here’s another approach: A bill before Congress would go a long way toward getting methadone to the people who need it. The Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act would allow any certified addiction doctor to prescribe methadone like any other medicine, and would permit regular pharmacies to dispense it. It’s a sane and necessary change that reflects the scope of the crisis. All of this is to say: We need more substance abuse relief everywhere. Even as Albany County works out the problem of where its clinics should go, local officials should be pressing state and federal representatives to update laws and remove obstacles to this lifesaving treatment. Close to 108,000 people died of drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2022. More than 6,000 of them were New Yorkers. Every preventable death should be heard as an anguished call to action.
Oct 15, 2024
Editorials are the institutional view of the Times Union. They represent the consensus of the editorial board, whose members are George Hearst, publisher; Casey Seiler, editor; Akum Norder, senior editor for opinion; Jay Jochnowitz, editor at large; Tena Tyler, senior editor for engagement; and Chris Churchill, columnist and editorial writer. While the Times Union’s news coverage frequently informs our editorials, the board’s opinions have no bearing on that coverage.