SORDID SYSTEM

I want to take this time to thank you for writing that superb article in The Portland Phoenix on “Medicaid and the Mentally Ill” (July 13, 2001).

I was very surprised and pleased to read about Mike Saxl’s Medicaid bill. Finally, somebody is seeing that there is definitely something wrong with the system the way it is now. This will make all the difference in the world to people who are both poor and mentally ill. It is surely long past due.

Once again, thank you for enlightening the public.

Diane Gosselin

Biddeford

PUGNACIOUS PROCESS

I just finished reading your excellent article on Medicaid for low income people (“More aid for those who need it,” July 13, 2001). As the director of substance abuse programs that have been dealing with these issues for years, you clearly spelled out what is obviously a very complicated and discouraging process.

Good job.

Paul McDonnell

Milestone Foundation, Inc.

Cumberland

PROFIT INDEED

As a methadone patient, I read with much interest your article “Climbing the walls” (Portland Phoenix, July 20). Your article was accurate, and speaks volumes, and it is much appreciated. I hope that you will continue to take interest in the plight of ALL methadone patients, not just those in prison. We all need quality press and need the “right people” to read the information from your article. Especially the information on crime prevention and the fact that since methadone is so good at preventing crime that it should not be in a for-profit setting. Since I have been in methadone maintenance, I have been more productive than at any other time in my adult life.

I am now a responsible hard working taxpayer, unlike the days of active addiction when I only sucked what I could from society. I am not proud of any of the actions I took while an active addict, but it is all true and something I cannot forget. I still get to the point of panic when I remember some of the horrible things I did to support my addiction. If methadone were to be made available in a different setting, other than for-profit, I truly believe that society as a whole would benefit greatly. The methadone-maintenance patient population needs your help and the help of your colleagues to get the word out so that the politicians and heath care system can work together to make methadone maintenance available to all addicts, not just to the ones that can afford it. It is shameful not to have methadone available and affordable for all the good it would do for our society as a whole. PLEASE help to spread the word to the “right people”, PLEASE!

By the way, I must pay $11 per day for this lifesaving medication, it cost about 80 cents per dose! Talk about profit, and all because I need help for a medical condition, another shameful commentary, the profit made from others suffering. The company that owns the clinic I receive treatment from also owns 35 other clinics! Profit indeed!

Name withheld by request

Fernandina Beach, FL

THE LIE IS DEAD

I am clean and sober now but have spent 16 years of my life on methadone. When I was first on it, I went to jail and kicked 80 mils and felt like I wanted to die, but came nowhere close to dying. I stayed off for about six months after I got out with in-patient treatment and a probation officer. I soon ended up back on it. However, I will say that the kick I did in jail deterred me from committing any further crimes because I knew what was ahead if I went to jail. At the time they would only come and bring the dose if someone delivered 50 dollars to the clinic before 8:30 in the morning when they closed.

I had no rich friends or family who thought it was worth it. I think the jails should dose methadone clients who are serving time for crimes committed before they started on methadone. If they get on methadone and continue to commit crimes then it’s not working for them anyway, and they need to realize that they can’t live the old lifestyles and continue to be medicated and made comfortable or high in jail. This is just my opinion, but these addicts have a choice and they can stay on methadone or go to NA and learn a new way to live clean. The lie that once a practicing addict, always a practicing addict is dead.

Ronnie Haze

Medford, OR

VOICE OF REASON

I just finished with your article, “Climbing the Walls.” I’ve been on methadone for the past 20 months after having been addicted to heroin for two years. I was glad to see such a well balanced article. It was refreshingly objective, clear, concise and thorough. By the end of the article, I was thinking . . . why don’t they just skip the Sunday dosing? Then all excuses and supposed problems will be dealt with? About the time this thought went through my mind, I read the same thing in the article.

At least somebody else is thinking straight. Too simple and logical a solution I guess. There’s no room for common sense in the local bureaucracy. I was so disgusted with the juvenile and petty politicking going on while those “patients” in need of their “medicine” see their welfare ignored. I just wish all the opponents of methadone dosing would educate themselves first before casually making such important, life-altering decisions. Oh well, such is our world. Thanks for a well written article.

David Jones

Columbus, OH

CORRECTION

Contrary to last week’s article, Newbury Comics does not currently carry Paranoid Social Wear. Rather, according to Sean Carroll, store manager, they are in the process of acquiring approval to carry the line of clothing. —ed.

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