Everett needn't fear this worthwhile service

Perceptions — unfair, dated and plain wrong — are tough to shake.

If any place ought to be sensitive to stereotypes, myths and stigmas it is Everett, working hard to shed a dowdy, mill-town image.

Methadone clinics carry the same burden. The Everett City Council's agonizing over allowing one echoes another era, not the city's confident new self with civic ambitions and pride of place.

These medical services must go where the people are. Everett's share of this human tragedy is a fact of life, not a vexing zoning quandary.

Stalling or making it difficult for a clinic to serve ordinary people trying to better their lives is not worthy of a city with big plans and demonstrated abilities.

The council's moratorium on methadone clinics runs until August, but Everett and Snohomish County have been hostile to the idea for years. So folks who need that extra help during recovery head to King County.

In the daily migration, Snohomish County residents travel south to receive a daily dose of methadone, a synthetic opiate, for their drug problem.

A state health agency estimates 1,100 new clients would use the service if offered closer to home, closer to work, with less disruption for already chaotic lives.

Lynnwood is trapped in its Lynnwoodness, and writhes in a convoluted legal proceeding to keep a methadone clinic at bay. On a brighter note, the Stillaguamish Tribe is working hard to put a clinic on trust land near Arlington.

An ideal geographic coverage for Snohomish County would be a clinic at Smokey Point, Everett and Lynnwood.

Methadone is a substitute for heroin or its pharmaceutical cousins. The drug eases the pain of withdrawal while addicts receive counseling and other help to change their destructive ways.

The medication lasts 36 hours, but this cup of strength is given every 24 hours. At about 30 hours, the pain starts to return, so why tempt fate?

Addicts receive the drug six days a week for the first nine months. People with a measure of stability in their lives can shift to every other day and take home an extra dose to fill in-between. A visit takes only minutes for the oral medication alone, but goes longer when combined with therapy.

Methadone and counseling run to $335 a month. About a third of the patients are on public assistance; the rest pay privately or are insured.

Therapeutic Health Services, 31 years in the business and seeking to open in Everett, operates a methadone clinic on Midvale Avenue North in Shoreline and a drug-and-alcohol counseling center in Bellevue, plus methadone clinics in Seattle.

The enduring suspicion is such places are magnets for criminal activity: burglaries, robberies, assaults, car prowls and drug dealing. King County sheriff and Bellevue police records going back years prove otherwise.

Everett acts as if it's a daring pioneer and should stick clinics in industrial parks. Keep things to a human scale.

In Bellevue, the Eastside Recovery Center is tucked off Bel-Red Road and 140th Avenue Northeast, back in a low-rise suburban office complex the baked-earth color of flower pots.

In Shoreline, the Midvale clinic is four blocks north of City Hall, in a large, two-story office building just off Aurora Avenue. For years, it housed the district offices of legislators Ruth Kagi and Carolyn Edmonds. Neither had any problems.

The Midvale office has been a Shoreline neighbor since 1986, and serves 184 people from Snohomish County. As the Everett controversy raised the clinic's profile, more clients arrived from the city.

These and other drug-rehab facilities are on bus lines and have ample parking. Access is key for helping people keep appointments and quickly go about their lives.

A Lynnwood police commander surveyed methadone clinics in Federal Way and Renton run by the company that wants to operate in Lynnwood. The pre-dominant finding was no problem with nearby businesses and, often, only vague awareness of the clinics' presence.

Coffee-shop type complaints of loitering occurring near the Midvale clinic do yield calls to police. The nuisances are few and manageable. Typically, clinic managers join the area chamber of commerce or service club so they are available for gripes firsthand.

The greatest fears, from a menacing presence to criminal activity, are not supported by history. Grim perceptions are not matched by experience.

I am most struck by how law enforcement understands the methadone issue, having seen the ravages of drug abuse and having dealt with its consequences.

Has anyone on the Everett City Council asked Police Chief Jim Scharf his opinion? He believes a well-run, well-managed methadone clinic would have minimal impact on the community.

He sees an opportunity for people to better their lives.

I'm with the chief.

Lance Dickie's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is ldickie@seattletimes.com