Methadone in Monument (Colorado Springs: neighborhood, high school, professionals)

[hollyt00]

If a methadone clinic needs to be in Monument, then hopefully there is discussion about why there needs to be a clinic there.


With how many people move to Monument, I honestly can't see how it still can be considered a small town.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by hollyt00

If a methadone clinic needs to be in Monument, then hopefully there is discussion about why there needs to be a clinic there.

Heroin and prescription drug abuse is now a problem of the suburbs so it makes sense that the methadone clinics are migrating out to these locations. Addicts in Briargate and the Black Forest are probably the target market that this clinic has in mind. I would be questioning why it's in Monument and not in the northern portion of the Springs where it's likely the majority of the addicts are.

With how many people move to Monument, I honestly can't see how it still can be considered a small town.

I'd agree with that, it's now a suburb of Colorado Springs and really feels like an extension- instead of it's own town. Or it's pretty close to it.

[beezle1]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

I would be questioning why it's in Monument and not in the northern portion of the Springs where it's likely the majority of the addicts are.

"A company known for targeting small towns with weak zoning laws" per the original poster.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by beezle1

"A company known for targeting small towns with weak zoning laws" per the original poster.

Sure, but the residents of Monument who are opposed to this should be using that line of reasoning to oppose the project- that Colorado Springs it's using Monument as a treatment site for its addicts. There's only one methadone clinic left in Colorado Springs and there's clearly a demand for more as indicated by this company's proposal in Monument. But Colorado Springs possibly has high barriers to entry for such a business, has pushed clinics within the city out, and is now transferring an undesirable business to a municipality with weaker zoning.

I'd fight this clinic with a line of reasoning such as, "We don't want your addicts!"

[amerifree]

We don't want junkies wandering in our community.
The out of state corporate foreigners and city council have a absolutely no compassion for addicts, and have no regard for your family. This is purely about greed and profiteering. That our town will be trashed is of zero concern to them.

Either our mayor and town counselmen are ignorant morons, or they are getting something from this corporation. I know the mayor and counsel are educated individuals.... so yes, they have sold Monument down the toilet for the betterment of themselves.
Example: Mayor Dominquez sided quickly with the Methadone magnates telling monument tax payers, "Our hands are tied and my job is to keep the town from being sued".
A more cowardly pathetic excuse has never been uttered by anyone previously elected to our town board.
The citizens of monument have tried, weighed and found Mayor Dominquez unwanted to further serve on the town council. They have requested his resignation, but he is dismissive and we will be forced to recall him at an additional cost to our taxes....sigh.

The nations attention will be focused on this landmark fight. If monument loses, this foreign corporation will continue its destruction of any US community with weak zoning ordinances.

[beezle1]

Monument Board Votes Against Giving Methadone Clinic Business License

[TCHP]

Originally Posted by amerifree

We don't want junkies wandering in our community.
The nations attention will be focused on this landmark fight. If monument loses, this foreign corporation will continue its destruction of any US community with weak zoning ordinances.

I can sympathize with your view on the subject, but I can't really see this as a landmark fight with a national audience. I also thought this company was headquartered out of Orlando Florida. Not exactly foreigners, per sey.

Originally Posted by beezle1

Monument Board Votes Against Giving Methadone Clinic Business License

Sounds good for the citizens of Monument, but I bet this is not the final word on the subject.

[amerifree]

Tax paying citizens of Monument Colorado acted decisively and swiftly to remove our cowardly, (almost certainly corrupt) mayor after he secretly let millionaire methadone clinic owners get a foothold in our community.
When citizens protested en masse, Mayor Rafael Dominguez rolled over like a wounded dog and cried there was nothing the citizens could do to stop the opening of the clinic.

More Monument City Council members are also being considered for replacement due to their clandestine support of Dominguez and importing hundreds, if not thousands, of junkies into our community.

Adios Rafael....you loser! You've been tried, weighed and found unwanted by your peers. Let this be a lesson to anyone in office that undermines Monuments voter's intelligence and ability to show the board members they work for the taxpayers... not the other way around.

[buckaroo17]

I don't want to dismiss your understandable concerns, but I do think you are letting mass-media images blur the situation. As others have said, the increase in heroin use of late is not the hard-core, hollow-eyed, grungy transients of bad TV police dramas, but rather it is middle-class folks who got hooked on extremely potent prescription painkillers and after crackdowns on pill-providing doctors, they have turned to cheaper alternatives like heroin (says something about prescription drug prices when heroin is the bargain opiate option, but that's a whole 'nother topic).

Heroin use surges, addicting more women and middle-class

The hard-core junkies aren't going to flock to Monument because a methadone clinic is opening there. The clinic company probably sees an opportunity to make money from those middle-class folks who are hooked and have insurance, and the company took advantage of weak zoning laws (you know, free-market capitalism in action). There's probably not a lot of money to be made off the hard-core junkies who generally don't have much money or insurance.

I do feel a need to add that the libertarian bent of many folks in Colorado will lead to situations like this. If folks don't want a lot of government regulating every last bit of life, then zoning laws aren't going to be very strong and those folks could end up with neighbors they don't like.

[Mike from back east]

Buck, I'm always suspicious when things change. The recent change to make prescription pain killers much harder to get played right into the hands of the drug cartels that smuggle heroin into the USA. We couldn't have done a better job of forcing our citizens into their hands and drive up demand for heroin, increase cartel profits and kill our people with overdoses and violence.

Seems that we could get a lot of the crime out of using prescription drugs if we have those who are addicted register as patients of a sickness (addiction) so we can get them the Rx drugs at cheap prices so they don't have to engage in crime to get funds for their fix. It also takes the profits out of it for street dealers of those pain killers.

We don't restrict how much booze anyone can buy, so why restrict how much painkiller one can buy. The FDA approved these items, AFAIC the FDA owes us a damned solution to the problem.

So, this whole recent set of events points to some truly stupid actions on the part of our "leaders" who played right into the hands of the cartels. My suspicion is that the cartels had people inside our governmental processes to propose tweaks to the law for the sake of "making America safer" by "getting tough on crime." Yeah, right.

I'd love to know the genesis of the recent change and who was behind it. Like the Watergate mess, the whistle blower told us to follow the money. The recent change actually worked against the so-called goals of the war on drugs which has become a dirty joke on the American people.