I have mixed feelings on this, because look what happened to Williamsport!
Drug detoxification center planned
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
BY FORD TURNER
Of The Patriot-News
Four hundred opiate-addicted people, from welfare recipients to professionals who make $200,000 a year, visit the drab-looking building on South Cameron Street on a regular basis.
Discovery House, Harrisburg's only methadone treatment program, soon might take on a greater role in combating drug addiction in the midstate.
It has filed for state approval to run a detoxification center -- a separate function from long-term methadone care -- where addicts in the physically wrenching early stages of opiate withdrawal can be treated.
"There is probably room, especially in the Harrisburg area, for more programs," said Cheryl Floyd, executive director of a Harrisburg-based treatment advocacy agency, PA Recovery Organizations Alliance.
A typical client at a detoxification center might be in heroin withdrawal after years of use, vomiting, sweating, shaking and unable to think clearly.
"It's horrible, nasty," said Nate Knaub, a recovering heroin addict, referring to the "dope sickness" experienced when a heroin habit is halted abruptly. "It's not something you would wish on your worst enemy. Your head feels like it is going to split open."
Knaub, who graduated from Lower Dauphin High School in 2000, said, "When you are a full-fledged junkie, you feel like that every morning until you score."
Treatment for opiate withdrawal involves medicine and oversight by doctors. Pennsylvania has 32 non-hospital, inpatient detoxification centers. Three are in the midstate: Gaudenzia in Harrisburg, New Perspectives in Lebanon and Roxbury in Shippensburg.
Deb Beck, president of the Drug and Alcohol Service Providers Organization of Pennsylvania, said there should be a detoxification center within a 90-minutes drive of every Pennsylvania resident.
A parent, she said, might have no idea what to do with a teenager or young adult going through withdrawal. A "myriad of physical complications" can occur, she said, including seizures.
Detoxification centers are licensed by the state Department of Health. Department spokesman Richard McGarvey could not specify when the process would conclude for Discovery House's application, but he said, "It won't be long. They know what they are doing. We have experience with them."
In Pennsylvania, treatment episodes for people addicted to heroin declined less than 2 percent in the latest year, to 20,668, following a jump of 25 percent from 16,811 in 2002-03 to 21,043 in 2003-04.
Heroin was the second-most-prevalent drug of choice among people entering drug treatment centers in the latest year, after alcohol.
Short-term narcotic detoxification might take up to 30 days. Afterward, recovering addicts usually are steered to long-term programs.
Discovery House has operated a methadone treatment program on South Cameron Street for about 12 years, according to Juan Deas, the program director.
Methadone is a manmade substance with chemical qualities that block an opiate high. A recovering addict taking methadone daily will get no rush from taking street drugs, Deas said.
Clients agree to stay in the program for at least a year. They pay $100 a week.
"These are people who are at the end of their rope," Deas said. "There is nothing else left. Either death or long jail sentences."