The Union Leader (Manchester NH)
July 18, 2003 Friday STATE EDITION
SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. B2
LENGTH: 649 words
BYLINE: By DAVID LAZAR Union Leader Correspondent
Missing methadone bottle was bound for Seacoast clinic
(CORRECTION ATTACHED)
LONDONDERRY -- A missing one-liter bottle of the potent narcotic methadone apparently was on its way to an abuse prevention clinic in Somersworth before it was stolen from a local trucking company warehouse, police said yesterday.
"Our concern is the safety of heroin or methadone clinic patients," Lt. Mike Bennett said. "The exact science of mixing this chemical is something that should only be done by someone with training. It's toxic and fatal if not taken in the prescribed dose and is not something anyone should be fooling with."
An ounce of the purplish liquid, used to help heroin addicts kick their dependency, is potent enough for 30 diluted doses. The white bottle, with blue and black lettering, is packaged much like a quart of oil, Bennett said, with markers on the side measuring the remaining level.
Police are still investigating whether the stolen bottle can be linked to what may have been a fatal overdose reported Tuesday night in Manchester.
Police say Corey Martin, 22, of Manchester, was found dead in his car late Tuesday night. Manchester police, however, have not linked Martin's death to an overdose.
"We are investigating an unattended death. We are awaiting the toxicology reports to determine the exact cause of death," said Manchester Police Sgt. Lloyd Doughty yesterday.
Martin was a former worker at BSP Trucking on Liberty Drive, police said.
The bottle that's missing was part of a case Martin's family returned to the warehouse after learning of his death and going through his belongings Wednesday.
Police aren't yet saying how they believe Martin came to possess the case.
Still, there is one bottle out there, they say, and that's enough to do quite a bit of damage, says the director of the state's alcohol and drug abuse prevention and recovery program.
"An addict who doesn't know enough about this drug will take as much as is available without any concern for the potency," director Riley Regan said yesterday. "I sure as hell hope this isn't a situation where someone doesn't know what they've got in their hands."
If it is, Regan worries it could be a bomb waiting to explode. Used by the state's three Massachusetts-run methadone clinics -- in Manchester, Somersworth and Hudson -- to treat heroin addicts, the narcotic's place in medicine has long been the subject of debate.
Developed in the early 1960s by a pair of New York physicians as a treatment, methadone has been found to block the effects, and ultimately the craving, among users of heroin. It is also known to create its own sense of narcotic euphoria.
Some argue it's giving drug users a new addiction to get rid of an old one. Proponents of the program -- one in which the users themselves must pay about $105 a week for treatment -- say it's a way, if clinically monitored, to
eliminate addiction altogether, along with the help of counseling and other aftercare.
According to Regan, Manchester's center reported around 130 patients over the last year, with another 211 going to the Hudson clinic. The Somersworth clinic, meanwhile, opened last month amid controversy among residents, some of whom complained it would bring a criminal element into their community.
The centers, open from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., are voluntary, and Regan says rough numbers suggest upwards of a 30 percent recovery rate.
"It's the only way to get some people onto the fringes of a recovery program, " he said. "It's been far more successful at getting people into recovery than our abstinence-only programs."
It's also, he concedes, walking a medical tightrope at times. The bottle missing from Londonderry, he says, can be nothing but bad news.
"Hearing there may have been an overdose, that really worries me if it gets into the wrong person's hands," he said.
Londonderry police are asking anyone with information about the bottle to contact them at 432-1118.
-----
CORRECTION:
20030719 -- The bottle of methadone reported stolen from a Londonderry trucking warehouse was part of a case bound for the Discovery House methadone clinic in Winslow, Maine. Its destination was incorrectly reported on Page B2 yesterday as the Community Substance Abuse Center in Somersworth.
Copyright 2003 Union Leader Corp.
July 18, 2003 Friday STATE EDITION
SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. B2
LENGTH: 649 words
BYLINE: By DAVID LAZAR Union Leader Correspondent
Missing methadone bottle was bound for Seacoast clinic
(CORRECTION ATTACHED)
LONDONDERRY -- A missing one-liter bottle of the potent narcotic methadone apparently was on its way to an abuse prevention clinic in Somersworth before it was stolen from a local trucking company warehouse, police said yesterday.
"Our concern is the safety of heroin or methadone clinic patients," Lt. Mike Bennett said. "The exact science of mixing this chemical is something that should only be done by someone with training. It's toxic and fatal if not taken in the prescribed dose and is not something anyone should be fooling with."
An ounce of the purplish liquid, used to help heroin addicts kick their dependency, is potent enough for 30 diluted doses. The white bottle, with blue and black lettering, is packaged much like a quart of oil, Bennett said, with markers on the side measuring the remaining level.
Police are still investigating whether the stolen bottle can be linked to what may have been a fatal overdose reported Tuesday night in Manchester.
Police say Corey Martin, 22, of Manchester, was found dead in his car late Tuesday night. Manchester police, however, have not linked Martin's death to an overdose.
"We are investigating an unattended death. We are awaiting the toxicology reports to determine the exact cause of death," said Manchester Police Sgt. Lloyd Doughty yesterday.
Martin was a former worker at BSP Trucking on Liberty Drive, police said.
The bottle that's missing was part of a case Martin's family returned to the warehouse after learning of his death and going through his belongings Wednesday.
Police aren't yet saying how they believe Martin came to possess the case.
Still, there is one bottle out there, they say, and that's enough to do quite a bit of damage, says the director of the state's alcohol and drug abuse prevention and recovery program.
"An addict who doesn't know enough about this drug will take as much as is available without any concern for the potency," director Riley Regan said yesterday. "I sure as hell hope this isn't a situation where someone doesn't know what they've got in their hands."
If it is, Regan worries it could be a bomb waiting to explode. Used by the state's three Massachusetts-run methadone clinics -- in Manchester, Somersworth and Hudson -- to treat heroin addicts, the narcotic's place in medicine has long been the subject of debate.
Developed in the early 1960s by a pair of New York physicians as a treatment, methadone has been found to block the effects, and ultimately the craving, among users of heroin. It is also known to create its own sense of narcotic euphoria.
Some argue it's giving drug users a new addiction to get rid of an old one. Proponents of the program -- one in which the users themselves must pay about $105 a week for treatment -- say it's a way, if clinically monitored, to
eliminate addiction altogether, along with the help of counseling and other aftercare.
According to Regan, Manchester's center reported around 130 patients over the last year, with another 211 going to the Hudson clinic. The Somersworth clinic, meanwhile, opened last month amid controversy among residents, some of whom complained it would bring a criminal element into their community.
The centers, open from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., are voluntary, and Regan says rough numbers suggest upwards of a 30 percent recovery rate.
"It's the only way to get some people onto the fringes of a recovery program, " he said. "It's been far more successful at getting people into recovery than our abstinence-only programs."
It's also, he concedes, walking a medical tightrope at times. The bottle missing from Londonderry, he says, can be nothing but bad news.
"Hearing there may have been an overdose, that really worries me if it gets into the wrong person's hands," he said.
Londonderry police are asking anyone with information about the bottle to contact them at 432-1118.
-----
CORRECTION:
20030719 -- The bottle of methadone reported stolen from a Londonderry trucking warehouse was part of a case bound for the Discovery House methadone clinic in Winslow, Maine. Its destination was incorrectly reported on Page B2 yesterday as the Community Substance Abuse Center in Somersworth.
Copyright 2003 Union Leader Corp.
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