August 17, 1972 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS 28975 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS TI..LINOIS VOLUNTEER TUTORS HELP I invite my colleagues to join me in I am pleased to share with my colleagues CHTI..DREN LEARN TO READ commending the thousands of volunteers at this time. in Tilinois and in the many other States [From the New York Times, Aug. 14, 1972] participating in the National Reading HON. ROMAN C. PUCINSKI A NEW PROBLEM: THE METHADONE ADDICT Center tutor training program. (By James M. Markham) OF ILLINOIS I express my thanks and appreciation IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES In New York and other large metropolitan to the volunteers at work in the 70 pub­ areas, methadone-maintenance prograinS are Wednesday, August 16, 1972 lic and parochial school systems of my rapidly expanding and reaching out to help State. The following organizations are thousands of heroin addicts But at the same Mr. PUCINSKI. Mr. Speaker, I am among the many supporting this en­ time controversy hounds methadone because proud to report that the citizens of illi­ deavor to give reading help to the chil­ more people-frequently nonaddicts-are nois are taking imaginative and impor­ dren of Illinois: dying from overdoses of the drug, while an tant action to meet the reading crisis in uncertain number of others are becoming ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORTING TuTOR-TRAINING primary methadone addicts, bypassing this Nation. IN READING FOR ILLINOIS CHILDREN They have begun a statewide volunteer heroin. Council of Community Services of Metro­ As a result, a debate is bullding over the tutor effort to assist our boys and girls politan Chicago, Chicago Housing Authority, to learn to read. controls that should govern the dispensation Englewood Urban Progress Center, Lutheran of methadone. While physicians involved ii This Nation's reading problem is seri­ Welfare Services of Illinois, Northwest Cook methadone Inaintenance argue they are be­ ous. County Volunteer Services Bureau, Operation ing hobbled by Federal regulations, those Teachers estimate that 43 percent of Word Power, Voluntary Action Center, Wood­ who would regulate them insist that the the children in America's primary schools lawn Urban Progress Center, University of Jekyll-Hyde properties of the synthetic opi­ need special help with reading problems. Illinois, Menard Branch of the AAUW, Moline ate dictate extreme caution Educators tell us that 8 million school­ Association for Children with Learning Dis­ "Pilot studies of the data indicate a steady abilities, Governors' Commission on Volun­ rise in the number of primary methadone children need reading help, and that 1 tary Action, Illinois State Library, East St. out of 20 is held back a grade each year, addicts over the past three years," observed Louis Project Outreach Libraries, Prairie City Dr. Jerome H. Jaffe, head of the Special Ac­ usually because of reading problems. Parent Teacher Organization, Retired Teach­ tion Office for Drug Abuse Prevention in Mr. Speaker, America's teachers and ers Association and Shamel Manor No. 2 Shel­ Washington. schools cannot alone supply the time, ter Care Home. · "The problem is small in terms of the talent, and funds to meet this problem. heroin problem," he added. "but, in terms But citizen volunteer tutors dedicated of trends, it indicates that substantial efforts and well trained, working under super­ are going to be needed to bring it under vision of the classroom teacher, can pro­ SKYROCKETING METHADONE control." vide our children with the individual ADDICTION Like others in the tangled field of addiction treatment, Dr. Jaffe notes that methadone, assistance needed. which is now dispensed to an estimated total This approach is now underway in my of 85,000 addicts in some 450 prograinS across State of illinois, sponsored by Dr. Michael HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL the country, has been an important rehabili­ Bakalis and his State department of ed­ OF NEW YORK tative tool, enabling many addicts to resume ucation, with the cooperation of the Na­ IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES normal lives. But, as methadone programs continue to expand at a galloping pace, he tional Reading Center, of Washington, Wednesday, August 16, 1"972 D.C. sees a need for a balanced approach. Two tutor-training workshops recently Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, one of the "We are aware of both the necessity for were held in Chicago and Springfield, in­ tragic offshoots of our unsuccessful at­ expanding and the need for further controls tempt to rehabilitate the estimated 560,- to prevent diversion," Dr. Jaffe said. volving 255 volunteer reading tutor­ At the heart of the methadone debate is trainers and coordinators from through­ 000 heroin addicts in the United States the issue of "diversion" of methadone from out our State. is that we are presently relying on a drug legitimate prograinS to the street. where More than 70 Illinois public and paro­ as dangerous and addictive as heroin it­ addict-patients retail it to a varied clientele chial school districts were represented self-methadone--to treat 85,000 of our of genuine heroin addicts, poly-drug abusers in these workshops. The National Read­ addicts. and simple experimenters. ing Center provides the tutor training I am deeply troubled by methadone The following handful of recent develop­ maintenance and by the thought that we ments highlights the nature of the diversion program at no cost to the volunteers. controversy: Thus far, the workshops have been held are depending on one drug whose long­ Dr. Robert T. Dale, who operated one of in 20 States and 5 metropolitan areas. range effects on the human body are the largest private methadone programs :t1 They are available to all States in the still unknown to treat those addicted to New York, has, along with his wife, been Nation. another drug. Unfortunately, until re­ declared a fugitive from justice. A warrant The trained volunteers from these search efforts to develop nonaddictive for his arrest was issued after agents of the workshops have now returned to their heroin antagonists are completed and .as Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs home communities. They are teaching long as certain panicking politicians call said they had discovered that Dr. Dale was unable to account for 55,000 40-milligra.m other volunteers how to tutor primary­ for heroin maintenance programs, we methadone wafers. One or two wafers could grade children in reading when school have little choice but to accept metha­ maintain an addict for a day. The legitimate begins this fall. done as one modality for treating addic­ price of a wafer is 4 cents; on the street one The future of American democracy tion. costs from $5 to $10. depends upon the American people's ca­ out of the growing use of methadone Dr. Elio Maggio, a psychiatrist who ran pacity for mature and rational decision. under medical supervision has sprung a private methadone program in the Bronx, The ability to read is essential to a strong an increasing diversion of methadone in­ was indicted for selling sizable quantities and progressive nation. of the drug to six undercover agents who to illegal channels. Certain unethical reportedly told him they were not even Every man, woman, and child in the physicians and pharmacists are also United States has a right to read. We heroin addicts. The psychiatrist, who alleg­ growing rich from dispensing methadone edly passed methadone to his customers must work to assure the reality of that with the knowledge that it is destined through a slit in the door of his office, grossed right, and we must begin our work with for the black market. As a result, meth­ $3,000 durir:.g a monitored two-day period, our children. according to the Bronx District Attorney's As a member of the National Reading adone overdose deaths are skyrocketing and may soon overtake the heroin over­ office. Council, the body dedicated to the elim­ In Hudson County, N.J., Dr. Sidney A. ination of illiteracy in this Nation during dose death rate. Nelson, a Union City physician, and Josepb. this decade of the 1970's, I am particu­ Jim Markham, a journalist who spe­ Klausner, a pharmacist, were indicted for larly proud of the lead that illinois citi­ cializes in covering the problems of the selling and filling prescriptions for metha­ zens are taking in this national volunteer drug epidemic, has written an excellent done for more than 1,000 "patients." effort. article on the methadone addict which In the first seven months of 1972, there cxvm--1825-Part 22 28976 :EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS 'August 17, 1972 have been a.t least IY7 methadone overdose "The connection's motive is obvious-he With your perntission, and for the in­ deaths in New York City, according to the can sell the inexpensive methadone, ob­ forDlation of all of those who read the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In all tained usually more or less directly from CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, I WOuld like to of 1971, there were about 20. local methadone clinics, in place of heroin In Washington, methadone has been al­ which he would have to obtain from abroad insert this article on Dr. Parlberg's find­ most as lethal a.s heroin this year. In the first through many price-multiplying middle­ ings: six months, 19 people have died from heroin men,'' the Haight-Ashbury study found. NONFOOD ITEMS IN SUPER MARKET BASKET overdoses, 17 from methadone overdoses and The methadone black market, it is argued, Have you ever sat down and figured what 13 from a. combination of the two drugs, iS a fairly benign phenomenon as long as its percent of your supermarket dollar iS spent according to Dr. James Luke, the capital's clientele is restricted to established heroin for nonfood items? Dr.