Methadone

A William H. Lemmel Middle School teacher was arrested yesterday and charged with possession of methadone that she is suspected of buying on her way to work, Baltimore police said. About 7:15 a.m., undercover officers observed a man selling what turned out to be a 2-ounce bottle of methadone to a woman in the 2000 block of N. Charles St., said Detective David Jones of the Central District's drug enforcement unit. The officers arrested the dealer, and the woman was arrested by uniformed officers who stopped her car about two miles away in the 2500 block of W. North Ave. and seized the methadone, Jones said.

The Harford County woman convicted Wednesday of manslaughter in the death of a toddler who ingested methadone will serve five years in prison. Elaine Marie Butler, 54, of Darlington was sentenced yesterday to a 10-year sentence with five years suspended and will be placed on supervised probation upon release. Butler, who worked for years as a registered nurse, also was barred from practicing in that profession, either for hire or as a volunteer. Harford Circuit Judge Stephen M. Waldron imposed the sentence after hearing statements from relatives of Ashton Preston, the 16-month-old boy who died after Butler mistakenly gave him a children's cup that contained methadone in December 2004.

Dr. Emmett Patterson "Pete" Davis, founder of a major methadone treatment program for heroin addicts in Baltimore, died of a cerebral hemorrhage Wednesday at his home in Chester, Va. He was 87. A longtime resident of Baltimore County, Dr. Davis was a family doctor in Northeast Baltimore in 1966 when he began to notice a growing number of patients seeking help with their heroin addictions. Baltimore and other cities at the time were experiencing a surge in drug abuse -- and with it, rising crime.

BALTIMORE COUNTY officials should be awash in praise for their decision to add 150 slots to a popular drug treatment program.Instead, they're left dodging complaints.Not surprisingly, the gripes come from business people seeking to operate for-profit methadone-dispensing centers that have been unable to locate in the county.In recent months, drug abuse officials have noticed a dramatic rise in people under age 25 seeking treatment.They snort rather than inject heroin, which hooks them faster.

Baltimore police say a mixture of methadone and baby formula killed a 5-month-old girl and led to first-degree murder charges against the child's mother: Teresa Ann Younger, 25, of the 4600 block of Freedom Way in Northeast Baltimore.The infant, Matia Grant, died the morning of March 4 at Bon Secours Hospital.The baby was not breathing when Younger took her to the hospital for treatment.Younger, arrested Friday, is accused of lacing the baby's formula with methadone the night of March 3 because the child was restless, homicide detectives said.

Sandwiched between an auto-parts store and a home entertainment shop, the drab building off York Road in Timonium is easily overlooked.Cars drive up. Men and women slip through glass doors. After a while, they go on their way, anonymous amid the bustle of chain restaurants, discount retailers and gas stations.But neighbors of the nondescript edifice at 2 Aylesbury Road soon could notice more activity.With little fanfare and less public discussion, Baltimore County is expanding its county-sanctioned methadone treatment facility by more than 50 percent, increasing the number of clients treated there from 285 to 433.The move is being criticized by private methadone providers that have fought for years to establish for-profit facilities in Baltimore County, only to be denied because of zoning laws and the county's insistence that more treatment space was not needed.

Every month, a group of ordinary-looking working men comes to the same West Baltimore doctor's office and leaves with the same kind of large prescription bottle, full of a secret called methadone.They rush in during breaks from their jobs and take it home like any other medication, in orange tablets that resemble chewable vitamin C.The men, participants in a research study, are among the first to try out what could become a common practice in the distribution of methadone, an enduring stepchild of drug treatment.

For the past few years, addicts getting methadone and counseling at Glenwood Life Center in Govans battled the elements as well as heroin and other drugs.The roof leaked. Wind blew through the windows. Toilets overflowed. Private talks wafted through thin walls. A radio turned on near a space heater could cause a blackout."It was nice and cool in the winter and nice and hot -- 95 degrees -- in the summer," said Frank Satterfield, executive director.Finally, it's all changed. After five years of planning, the staff and 308 clients of one of the oldest methadone centers in Baltimore, begun in 1971, have just moved into their $1.1 million renovated home at 516 Glenwood Ave."

In an article in Sunday's Home & Family section, the status of Sinai Hospital's methadone treatment program was reported incorrectly. The SHARP program remains open.The Sun regrets the errors.Pub Date: 5/19/98

Every day, Frank McGloin's patients -- many wearing business suits and work uniforms -- drive along a wooded road and past a group of Columbia's tract homes to a treatment center where they are desperately seeking help to save their lives."

Lisa Pulley's fourth daughter was born last week. She put the first three up for adoption long ago because she couldn't - really, wouldn't - stop using crack cocaine and heroin long enough to focus on them. n The eighth-grade dropout has never held a job. She has been too busy selling sex for drugs, living on the street so she could afford drugs. There was no room in her life for children. But this time, Pulley swears, she is ready. This time, she keeps telling herself, will be different.

Vernice Harris, the Baltimore woman convicted of manslaughter after her 2-year-old daughter died of methadone poisoning, was sentenced yesterday to 10 years in prison for failing the drug treatment program that was required for probation. The sentence was the maximum possible. During a contentious hearing before Baltimore Circuit Judge Timothy Doory, Harris' attorney, Maureen Rowland, argued that her client deserved a second chance and that her infractions - writing love notes to a male patient - hardly warranted dismissing her from Second Genesis, a residential treatment program in Crownsville.

Vernice Harris, a Baltimore woman convicted of manslaughter in the methadone poisoning of her 2-year-old daughter Bryanna, is failing the drug and alcohol treatment program that she was ordered to complete as part of her probation. A status hearing planned for yesterday morning in Baltimore Circuit Court was canceled, but attorneys are preparing for a probation hearing next month. Harris, 31, has been held at the Baltimore Women's Detention Center for several weeks and will remain there until the hearing.

Two men dead in shootings Two men were fatally shot in separate incidents late Monday and early yesterday in different parts of Baltimore, according to city police. Police yesterday had not identified a man who was found shortly after midnight yesterday in a parked Toyota sedan in the 1100 block of Abbott Court at the Latrobe Homes public housing complex in East Baltimore. He had a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at Johns Hopkins Hospital at 12:35 a.m. Earlier in the evening, police officers found a wounded man in the 500 block of S. Smallwood St. The man, whose identity was not known, had been shot at least once in the head.

Helen Reightler's family and friends worried about what would happen to the 43-year-old recovering heroin addict living on the streets. But the delicate balance between looking out for a loved one and being fed up with the troubles she brought with her had tipped, and they had had enough. Two weeks ago, police say, Reightler was on a bench along Pratt Street when she was stabbed in the neck by a homeless man who started an argument about some cardboard she was sleeping on. She was paralyzed and, while in the hospital, came down with a fever, later slipping into shock.

Privatization proves taxing for taxpayers The collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is an example of a short-term solution resulting in a long-term failure, and of the victory of ideology over reasoned analysis ("U.S. takes over mortgage giants," Sept. 8). Fannie Mae, formerly a governmental agency, was sold to private investors in 1968. Freddie Mac was privatized in 1989, and both privatizations were rooted in the ideology that private enterprise always does a more efficient and effective job than the federal government, and that less governmental regulation always is better than more regulation.

Citing her efficiency and management experience, Department of Human Resources Secretary Brenda Donald and Mayor Sheila Dixon yesterday elevated Molly McGrath to be the director of the Baltimore City Department of Social Services. "She's no nonsense," Dixon said at a City Council luncheon yesterday. "She's got a strong background in child advocacy. She understands what my mission is in strengthening the family and really working on creating an environment to put people back in society and become functional and responsible citizens."

The June letter from the Baltimore Health Department alerted physicians, nurses and other providers to a significant increase in methadone-related overdose deaths. The letter from Dr. Laura Herrera, a deputy city health commissioner, raised the possibility that the overdoses involved prescriptions for pain. It was a cautionary reminder that health care providers should educate their patients about the proper use of methadone and the lethal risks of taking extra doses. Dr. Herrera was right to be concerned: Methadone-overdose deaths of city residents have risen from seven in 1995 to 74 in 2007.

Every year, an estimated 12,000 heroin addicts are arrested and processed through Baltimore's downtown booking and pretrial jails. And there are hundreds more who arrive treating their addictions with methadone. But for those who can't make bail, staying behind bars has long meant no methadone - the leading medication to ease painful withdrawal symptoms and a proven strategy to keep addicts off of heroin and clear of criminal lifestyles. Now, that's changing. Maryland's new program to dispense methadone to heroin addicts who are held at the Baltimore jail awaiting trial has rapidly grown into one of the nation's largest efforts to deliver the addiction treatment behind bars.

The woman convicted of manslaughter in the methadone poisoning death of her toddler was supposed to be sentenced yesterday as part of a plea deal sending her to a mental health facility rather than a prison. But Vernice Harris is no closer to being placed in such a facility than she was when she pleaded guilty three months ago. Social workers involved in the case say it might be six months to a year before a bed becomes available. Meanwhile, Harris, 31, sits in a cell at the Baltimore Women's Detention Center, where her defense attorney says her psychiatric condition is growing worse.