A Windsor methadone clinic blames misinformation as to why some automatically assume they're bad news.
Dr. Tony Hammer has been with the Erie St. Clair Methadone Clinic on Lincoln Rd. since it opened four years ago.
Hammer says these addicts are trying to get help, not cause trouble.
"They (residents) raised issues such as the decline in their property values, totally untrue," he says. "They raised fears that there will be more crime in the area, which has turned out to be completely untrue and that the patients would be disruptive somehow, which also turned out to be untrue."
He says there have been only a few issues with patients since they opened, none within the last 18 months.
Last week a Windsor committee voted to lift restrictions on where the clinics can be located after complaints over human rights violations.
Hammer hopes maybe that decision will cause more methadone clinics to pop up.
"There's some advantage in having more and smaller methadone clinics distributed around the city," he says. "They're easier to manage on a smaller scale and I think that it should reassure residents that these small numbers make disruption, and the kinds of things they say they're worried about, even less likely."
