Drug Users Turn Death Dealers as Methadone From Bain Hits Street

By Sydney P. Freedberg - Feb 8, 2013
After Jennifer Vanlieu turned to methadone treatment to beat an addiction to heroin and pain pills, she morphed from drug-user to convicted drug-dealer.

Vanlieu said she got a carryout methadone dose at a clinic operated by CRC Health Corp. in Richmond, Indiana, in March, 2010, and then gave about 15 milligrams to her friend Carissa Plemons. Plemons died hours later, after ingesting a lethal mix of methadone and other drugs, according to police reports.

Take-home methadone -- doses patients carry out instead of taking at clinics -- enabled the abuse, said Vanlieu, 26, who was sentenced to six years in prison for dealing the drug to Plemons. While she didn’t sell it to her friend, she said in an interview that other clinic patients often re-sold their take- homes. CRC is owned by Boston-based Bain Capital Partners LLC and is the largest U.S. provider of methadone treatment.

“Some would sell it in the parking lot,” she said.

Liquid methadone, used for decades to help addicts abate withdrawal symptoms as they quit heroin or other opiates, is leaking into illegal street sales via take-home doses, according to law-enforcement officials in Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. Investigators in each of those states have linked such “diverted” doses to clinics operated by CRC.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-08/drug-users-turn-death-dealers-as-methadone-from-bain-hits-street.html