Methadone clinic owner confirms he plans to locate clinic in Spencer

Area News

February 5, 2009

By Dale Welch / dale@hilltopexpress.net and Michael R. Moser / mmoser@crossville-chronicle.com The Crossville Chronicle Thu Feb 05, 2009, 03:27 PM CST

The owner of a methadone clinic in Rossville, GA has confirmed a story originally reported in last week’s Hilltop Express that he is no longer considering Monterey as a new location. Instead, he plans to build in Van Buren County. His property, including a house, is for sale in the Monterey area.

Private Clinic North CEO Paul "Rip" Connell said that the Monterey area has missed an opportunity. He said that, while making his choice of Van Buren County, he had groups of community leaders from Van Buren County, such as the county mayor, county commissioners, members of the industrial development board and from the Upper Cumberland Human Resource Agency to come to his Rossville facility to check it out. Connell noted that no one from Putnam County or Monterey bothered to do the same.

Citing a U.S. Department of Justice report, Connell said, “As you will undoubtedly see by this report that most of the selling of methadone is coming from hospitals, physicians and pharmacies, and to a lesser extent, from narcotic treatment program (methadone clinic as they are called in Tennessee).

“It appears that the people protesting the loudest in opposition to the clinic are the people in this report putting all of the pain pills on the street and most of the methadone.”

Several Van Buren County officials are supporting the methadone clinic coming to that area. They are looking into donating land in the county’s industrial park if a certificate of need from the state is issued.

While several are supporting the proposal, some are speaking out against it. In last week’s Mountain View, the Van Buren County newspaper, District Attorney Lisa Zavogiannis said she “strongly encourages the citizens of Spencer and Van Buren County to become informed about the dangers of locating a methadone clinic here."

Having done so herself, Zavogiannis has reached the same conclusion shared by national experts as well as the medical professionals, law enforcement and other citizens of Monterey and Putnam County: a methadone clinic presents nothing less than a life-threatening danger to any community in which it is located.

“Methadone clinics simply trade one drug for another. The citizens of Van Buren County have an opportunity, albeit a short one, to inform themselves on this subject. The time to do so is now.”

Connell told the Hilltop Express that he hopes to be able to start building by late fall of this year.

(Dale Welch is owner/editor of the Hilltop Express published in Monterey.)

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