Methadone Clinics in Ft. Greene

How many people here have called the police about these dealers?

Better yet... how many of you have gone to community board meetings and expressed this concern to the liaison?

If so, when? If so, what was the response?

What a disappointing lack of sympathy from many of the posts here. People who want to remove drug dealers from their neighborhood are called "selfish" by people on this message board for doing something about it.

Yes, I have called the police. Every time I see something. Is that really the way to solve an institutional problem? I promise you it isn't.

Yes, there are drugs in other neighborhoods too, and drug problems in this neighborhood that would likely exist regardless of the clinics. Is that a reason to be complacent?

Yes, it's a "Not In My Backyard" situation. Sherlock. Has it occurred to you that maybe some NIMBY situations could actually be valid!?

The effort to close the methadone clinic is actually an effort to *consolidate* the two (supposedly THREE) methadone clinics in the same general area into one facility. I don't think anyone is suggesting these people are to be left high and dry, no pun intended.

It's disappointing that people here are so eager to point out what they perceive to be entitled newcomer energy that they'll invalidate legitimate observations and legitimate efforts to revitalize a community.

You can go ahead and bash this post, but please, realize this is the core of a serious drug problem in our neighborhood, and for the love of god please don't suggest it's a police problem again. That one really stinks of newcomer naivete.

have you or haven't you voiced this issue at a community board meeting?

Subject: Re: methadone clinic

anon4 wrote: I am in agreement with the majority of writers on this blog. I am relatively new to the Clinton Hill area but in the short time I have been here, there have been drug related shootings and murders. You don't have to be a genius to realize that a methadone clinic brings problems to a community (drug dealing, loitering, etc).

Hmm. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm not aware of a methadone clinic in my area, but I've also seen drug related shootings and murders. I can't speak to your situation completely, but do you think that those problems may exist in the area without regard to the clinic? On _some_ level? Or are you convinced that it is 100% related to the clinic? Just wondering...

I think I've seen a few rehab places in PS - there's definitely one smack-dab on flatbush.

and there are halfway houses and SROs in all of our neighborhoods - that's where a lot of the poorer folks who need methadone clinics live.

I don't see the institutional problem being addressed, frankly. I see you saying "not in my backyard" to an institution that, with some well placed phone calls, well written letters, visits to community board meetings, and conversations with the board of directors of the institution, could fade into the background of the community, as one poster said.

we live in new york city - we're all in each others faces. rather than flat out rejecting something, try fixing it.

I'm sorry, I don't see these burnt out, middle aged, for the most part toothless heroin addicts as a threat. A pain in the ass maybe, and certainly with a lousy sense of color coordination. But if they threatened me with a knife, I'm sure I could defend myself by yelling at them or waiting till they fell asleep.

Compare them please to the dealers on the "grand street corridor" and tell me I'm wrong.

Actually there are rehabs and clinics in the "better" Brownstone neighborhoods - a Daytop Treatment Facility on State street, for example. But since it isn't surrounded by empty lots and shuttered shops it doesn't stand out.

solet wrote: Ha.

I don't think anyone is directly threatened by the toothless, fall-asleep-in-an-instant people outside the clinic (they could be your bosses!)... It's the drug trade they support that's more of a concern. Petty dealers, street presence, shops paying the rent selling "reggae albums etc.

You're certain it's the clinic patrons who "support" the trade, as opposed to residents of the neighborhood who don't think they need to see a clinic yet?