One of the county’s two methadone clinics came under blistering attack at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, just one week before Santa Barbara’s $3.6 million annual contract with the private service provider was scheduled for renewal. County Supervisor Peter Adam led the charge, suggesting, “There’s a lot more willful ignorance of this methadone thing than meets the eye.”
Methadone is a highly addictive but federally regulated opiate that’s long been given to heroin addicts in lieu of their drug of choice on the grounds it produces a less intense high and allows users to lead more functional lives. Adam, however, challenged the wisdom of substituting one addiction for another. Alice Gleghorn, the county’s Department of Behavioral Wellness chief, said she first began administering methadone programs 20 years ago in San Francisco and quickly discovered how effective they were. Gleghorn claimed that 80 percent of the county’s methadone patients who manage to stay in treatment 90 days are free of illegal drugs and that 25 percent successfully complete treatment.
For the past 17 years, the County of Santa Barbara has contracted with a private methadone treatment and counseling service — Aegis — and is now funneling millions of federal dollars to provide daily fixes to about 700 patients countywide. Aegis runs two clinics, one in Santa Barbara and the other in Santa Maria. In the past two years, the number of methadone patients has increased by 180, in part because heroin use has skyrocketed and in part because the Affordable Care Act now covers methadone treatment.