Questions remain about opioid patients

The letter on April 20 titled “Healing Campus a needed community asset” (Sequim Gazette, page A-14) deserves comment.

The new clinic treating drug addicts will indeed be busy. However, the decision to open the clinic did not consider the extremely low success rate of the treatment. The National Institutes of Health (nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/painkiller-abuse-treated-sustained-buprenorphine-naloxone) in their study found that one year after completing treatment, 10 percent or less remained drug-free!

The “hard-won victory” to open the new clinic in Sequim in its “handsome new building” may be more in the interest of the incredible sums that will be charged for these treatments and the profits garnered, than with the success rate of the treatments!

Another unanswered question remains as to where do those patients in that group of 90 percent of the patients who are not cured go? If they are indigent and homeless, how do they now generate funds for their addiction?

How many assaults and robberies will be a result of their activities? Why was no consideration for the safety of the rest of the community given by the Jamestown tribe or the supporters of this effort with such an extremely inefficient track record?

As this sham continues, perhaps we will be given periodic updates on the success rate of the treatments.

John Mackay

Sequim