Regarding methadone clinics in Bremerton, which first appeared online Jan. 24 and is on the front page of this print edition, it is indeed “too late” for an untold number of local residents who wanted and needed what for many years has been the “gold standard” of treatment of opioid dependence, and whose lives have been destroyed, and lost, to date.

Strong endorsements of methadone maintenance has come from such objective and respected authorities as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Institute of Medicine and the World Health Organization. The tragedy will continue if the prediction is correct, that even with “the city’s new found ability to permit the clinics … no clinic operators [are] interested in Bremerton or the county.” How terribly sad for the addicts, their families and the entire community!

Robert G. Newman MD, MPH,

Director, Baron Edmond de Rothschild Chemical Dependency Institute, Beth Israel Medical Center NYC