by the ice maiden » Sat Nov 12, 2011 12:20 pm
To be honest I've never met a heroin user who WANTS to be on methadone. The ones who are on methadone want to be totally clean from everything. There are far more users in the town than the powers at be would like to admit to, they try to deny that there is in fact a heroin problem in the town. There is also a far higher amount of people who use illegal drugs socially. To be fair we deal with far more people everyday where alcohol is the problem. There is a huge number of people struggling with alcohol problems in the town. Yes I do think the methadone clinic is needed, but only if it is structured correctly. People on a structured programme find this more beneficial in their recovery. It won't attract more users to the town, because they can get methadone anywhere else they want, here is one of the only places that it is not prescribed. People move to the town because they are getting handed houses, and as far as I'm aware you were only supposed to be housed through homeless if you had connections to the town, this is clearly not the case.
To be fair, I think only a handful of people turned up at the information day because it was so poorly advertised, which in my opinion is the way it was wanted. I was totally against the information day, I felt that a public meeting would be a far better way of answering peoples questions and fears.