SOUTH THOMASTON, Maine — Residents approved changes to the town’s land use ordinances Tuesday night including regulations of outpatient addiction treatment clinics.
There was no debate on the changes by the 57 residents who turned out for the annual town meeting held at the Gilford Butler School.
The ordinance does not mention methadone clinics but sets limits on location and public safety standards for outpatient addiction treatment clinics. Clinics must come before the planning board.
No clinic is allowed within 1,000 feet of any church, cemetery, school, family day care home, day care center, or public park or playground.
A minimum of two meetings per calendar year shall be conducted at the clinic with the applicant, the code enforcement officer, the sheriff and the chief of the Maine State Police or their designee to establish and maintain professional cooperation.
Incumbent Selectman Patrick “Mike” Florance was re-elected without opposition.
Residents also gave approval with little debate to a 2012 budget of $957,466, up $2,615 from last year’s approved budget. Included in the spending package was $5,900 to have an outside evaluation of the need for fire and ambulance facilities and equipment.
Good for them to want to keep those Drug Dens and the junkies away from normal folks.
I certainly wouldnt want it in my back yard or ……………….
“junkies away from normal folks”
Wow that’s just wrong on so many levels. Do you realize how quickly you could go from “normal” to “junkie?” It could be as simple as a toothache. You have a toothache, doctor gives you Vicodin. Little does anyone know, you are genetically predisposed to addiction. Your brain loves what Vicodin does for it, and pretty soon you realize you have burned through a weeks supply in a day. You call your doc, apologize for being so silly, but you seemed to have left your pills at your sisters in Mass when you were visiting and could he be so kind as to call in a new script. Fast forward a year or two and you are on a street corner doing unsavory things to get your fix. It really is that easy.
Complain all you want about people’s decisions, but in the end addiction is a disease. I have no problem with anyone who condemns addicts, as long as they condemn people with heart disease, adult onset diabetes, obesity, and a million other diseases that can be boiled down to choices in diet, lifestyle, etc. However to say addicts deserve it because they chose that life out of one side of your mouth, and pity the person who McDonald’s his way into a heart attack out of the other side of your mouth is just ignorant.
I have never been addicted, yet I understand how addiction works. I also don’t have haart disease or diabetes, but I know too how those work. There is little difference, with exception of treatment. Heart disease attacks the heart, a muscle, diet and exercise can help, meds can do the rest. With addiction, the brain is damaged, which in a way makes it more difficult to overcome. Not only are there biological brain issues to deal with, there is also conscious thought to deal with. Addiction is both biological and mental. Recovery is a two front war.
Please remember, to use your terms, that “junkies” were once “normal people” just like you. Heck in some cases, like G.W. Bush, you can go from “normal” to “junkie” to President of the United States.
Nice try at rationalizing this ” disease” the junkies have as akin to a heart condition.
Since I’m a warm and fuzzy guy , I”ll agree to a heart clinic in my neighborhood.
You can have a Meth Clinic in yours.
Does anybody have any idea if these land use ordinance amendments will withstand a court challenge? If not crafted with care it will be tossing money away to lawyers.
They need a $5900 consultant to tell them that they must continue to provide fire and EMS to their citizens, and they’ll need a facility and some equipment to do so? I’ll do it for $5800!
The probably contract with another town and are looking to see if it’s cost effective to go with their own fire and ambulance service.
I still say the methadone clinic should be located in Warren, just by the entrance to the state prison.
Cemetaries?
what’s with the cemetary thing? It’s almost comical.
Oh that’s right, patients will be meeting and dealing drugs behind the tombstones!!!!
Probably the suicide angle.