For the better part of the last decade, Rio Arriba County and Española have led the nation in fatal drug overdoses.
Now, area residents could soon have a new option to help them cope with the heroin and opioid addictions that have affected the community.
The New Mexico Human Services Department/Behavioral Health Services Division recently approved an application that will allow the Siete Del Norte Community Development Corporation to operate a methadone clinic along State Road 68 in Velarde.
The proposed clinic, Aspire Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program, was to be housed at the defunct Oñate Monument Resource and Visitor Center, but public pressure, among many other concerns, may nix that location.
County Manager Tomas Campos said some residents have expressed opposition to the proposed location, which the County owns.
“Well, I heard that they may have found another sight because we are taking too long,” Campos said. “I am hearing a lot of that, ‘Not in my backyard.’ I guess citizens were calling the County commissioners.”
County Health and Human Services Director Lauren Reichelt, who welcomes the proposed clinic, said she hasn’t heard any opposition to the clinic’s location, but maintains that it will be an excellent mechanism for assuring those living with opioid addiction have access to life-improving treatments.
“Siete Del Norte is a nonprofit that works closely with the County,” Reichelt said. “And, what we like about them is, we know they will provide wrap-around services.”
Reichelt said the organization would be a good fit to help tackle the area’s opioid addiction problem.
More services
“Their parent organization, Chicanos Por La Causa, already provides similar type of services in Arizona,” Reichelt said. “They have a real capacity to do this. We are looking at them to do the case management, and they are willing to work with us to make sure their clients are fully integrated into the rest of the treatment system.”
Reichelt compares the proposed nonprofit clinic to the area’s existing for-profit methadone clinic operated by New Mexico Treatment Services. She said the area’s current methadone clinic doesn’t give clients their money’s worth.
“It costs a very small amount to produce a methadone dose, something like $.80,” Reichelt said. “But the providers charge much more than that because there should be all kinds of wrap-around services.”
She said wrap-around services, at the very least, would consist of group and individual counseling sessions that could possibly help clients address other issues that may be impacting their lives.
New Mexico Treatment Services Medical Director and Clinical Associate Professor Dr. Bruce Trigg, said all methadone clinics, regardless of whether they are for-profit or nonprofit, must include counseling services in the replacement therapy’s cost. A dose of methadone usually costs somewhere around $11 or $12 and suboxone usually costs about the same for two doses. Suboxone is fully covered by Medicaid, since the implementation of Obama Care.
“Every person on methadone is assigned a counselor and has to see a counselor on a regular basis,” Trigg said. “You come every day, you interact with nurses and you are in a treatment environment. But even if people aren’t using (druges), a lot of people live with depression and anxiety and a methadone clinic has to provide counseling to address the whole spectrum of human experiences.”
Although it is unclear if the Aspire Clinic will focus on long- or short-term care, Trigg said most methadone clinics operate off the idea that heroin and opioid addictions are like any other chronic illnesses.
“This is one of the misunderstandings of addiction, it is not a curable disease,” Trigg said. “For many people, it is a chronic disease like diabetes. Most likely, you would have to continue it, so you can have a normal life. The purpose of the treatment is not to get people off the treatment, it is to have a happy, healthy life.”
State approval
State Behavioral Health Division Spokesperson Kyler Nerison confirmed that his Department did approve Siete’s application to operate a methadone clinic in the area.
“The Human Services Department regulates methadone clinics and we have granted the approval to Siete Del Norte to get the methadone clinic up an running,” he said. “But, we aren’t involved with the financial end.”
Before an organization gets state approval to operate a methadone clinic, they must get the blessing of several national governmental regulatory agencies and standards-based industry groups, including the Drug Enforcement Agency, Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and the Board of Pharmacy.
The application doesn’t outline how the clinic will be funded and Lopez hasn’t returned telephone calls regarding the project’s finances or how many people the clinic will employ.
Siete President Todd Lopez did not return calls regarding the proposed clinic, but the application his organization submitted said the clinic will also offer suboxone.
This could actually create more problems when it comes to curbing the area’s historic drug problem, according to Española Det. Eric Gallant. Unlike methadone, suboxone is gaining traction as a street drug, partly because it comes in easy-to-conceal strips, while methadone is usually dispensed in liquid from.
More suboxone
Gallant said he has noticed that the opioid replacement therapy is growing in popularity via the drug trade.
“It has been a lot lately,” Gallant said. “I noticed they sell them a lot on the streets. There have been people busted with large amounts of strips and cash that is consistent with selling.”
While Trigg agrees that Suboxone is often sold as part of the illegal drug trade, he said those sales are a manifestation of a lack of the drug’s availability through legitimate channels.
“There is a black market, but all the people who are knowledgeable about addiction know that is because they can’t get (it) legally,” Trigg said. “There aren’t enough doctors prescribing buprenorphine (the generic term for suboxone).”
However, Trigg said after the first couple of times a person uses suboxone, it looses it narcotic affect, so most of those customers aren’t using the drug to get high.
Although he acknowledges the progress made in recent years with dealing with the state’s addiction crises, he said the lack of resources also indicate the failures the government has had for addressing the state’s addiction rates.
Trigg maintains that if the proper resources were in place, inmates getting out of jail and those who have overdosed, would be given a referral for either one of the opioid replacement therapies.
“New Mexico has been one of the leading states in getting naloxone (Narcan) into the hands of drug users, but the problem with Naxolone, it is a stop-gap,” Trigg said. “People overdose, overdose again and again, until they get into treatment and that treatment is methadone and suboxone.”