By Brenda Flanagan
Correspondent
“I lose everything. I lose job, I lose family,” said Waldemar Rosado.
Rosado’s heroin addiction might’ve landed him on line at Lennard Clinic where a daily dose of methadone helps clients stay clean. He took methadone for months before he beat his addiction.
“I wake up, I doing everything like a normal person,” he said. “No high. I feeling like normal. I don’t feel any withdrawal symptoms.”
“It has to be a direct pipeline from the detox to the next level of care,” said Human Resources Director Samuel Roberson.
Roberson says Lennard Clinic’s got 1,300 clients.
“Most of the people who come here have had several attempts at treatment and this is the last line, the last defense,” he said. “This does keep them off the street.”
That’s the intent of the Ocean County Prosecutor Joe Coronato fighting the heroin epidemic with a pilot methadone project. It offers addicts who complete detox free entry into treatment.
“The option’s gonna be in-patient for a period of time or they can do out-patient through methadone, Suboxone or Vivitrol. Then we’re hoping to model this to turn out to other counties and hopefully turn out throughout U.S.,” said Coronato.
“So it’s not at all clear how this is going to work,” said Rosann Scotti.
Scotti heads New Jersey’s Drug Policy Alliance.
“You don’t want to get people’s hopes up on the one hand, that they can get treatment and not be able to follow through with it,” Scotti said.
New Jersey’s got just 3,130 short- and long-term beds at in-patient rehab facilities like Newark’s Integrity House.
“The problem is that currently half the adults and two-thirds of the adolescents in this state who want treatment can’t get it because there’s not enough access, there’s not enough funding,” she said.
Medicaid doesn’t cover in-patient rehab. And while some offer sliding scale fees, costs can go stratospheric: $2,880 a month at Freedom House, $7,000 a month at Alina Lodge, more than $16,100 at Lighthouse and $20,000 at Seabrook.
“The one thing I’ve learned is, there’ll never be enough beds to cover it, and there’ll never be enough money to have all these beds. The only way we’re gonna solve this problem — or at least address it appropriately — is through further medication,” said Coronato.
The Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office methadone program kicked off very quietly a week ago. It’s had one client so far. A spokesman says they plan to ask the state to help pay for it.