Mar 28, 2016 3 min read

It’s not every day that someone opens a new business and fervently hopes it will be permanently closed.

But that’s the case with Echo Treatment Center, a methadone clinic that opened earlier this month on Wylie Avenue in Washington. The city’s second methadone clinic, operated by John Moschetta, a former probation officer who left his position to operate the facility. He remarked upon its opening that if a serial killer were claiming as many lives as heroin does in Washington County, the National Guard would be deployed.

Moschetta also said, “I would love to shut this place down one day.”

We would also love to see the storm of heroin addiction head out to sea and for Moschetta’s facility to be shuttered for lack of patrons. But, in the meantime, measures must be taken to combat heroin and help addicts quell their appetite for the drug.

We have to approach the world as it is.

Methadone clinics such as Echo Treatment Center, and one that is being planned for Monongahela Township in Greene County, will be necessary as long as heroin remains a plague.

And several studies have shown that giving addicts methadone, along with counseling and other forms of treatment, can be effective in helping addicts loosen heroin’s grip. Methadone stabilizes patients, soothing the cravings they have for heroin and taming withdrawal symptoms while, at the same time, it does not provide the euphoria that makes heroin such a potent drug. As Moschetta explained when his treatment center opened, “Methadone is just a tool in the total package of counseling and behavioral support. We’re trying to stop them from taking heroin and stop committing crimes as quickly as possible. A lot of these people need their lives worked on. A lot of times (addiction) is a symptom of other things going on.”

The methadone clinic that is on the drawing board in Greene County relocated to Monongahela Township after residents in nearby Cumberland Township raised objections to it. Treatment with methadone is frequently the subject of myths and misinformation – there have been tales that it renders patients sterile, rots their bones and is simply a heroin substitute. None of these are true.

In fact, a study from the University of California-San Francisco found that methadone use lowers rates of heroin use and reduces needle-sharing, which can spread HIV and other diseases.

Receiving methadone treatment can help heroin abusers concentrate on the fundamentals of daily life while they receive intensive counseling.

Is there a silver bullet when it comes to heroin? Of course not. Addicts are always in danger of relapsing, and surely many who have sought methadone treatment have fallen back on their old, deadly habits. But the supervision and counseling addicts receive at places such as Echo Treatment Center must be counted as small triumphs in the ongoing struggle this region is having with heroin.

As Moschetta said, “It’s a victory to just have (addicts) show up every day and get into the routine.”