A newly proposed tax bill in West Virginia that would tax a dollar to treatment centers for every dose of methadone distributed to recovering addicts is being met with mixed emotions by the drug rehabilitation community for various reasons. Recovering addicts are skeptical about the newly proposed bill because they feel that the tax will be passed on to them by the treatment centers. Additionally, recovering addicts are arguing that the bill is discriminating against them because it does not tax non-addicts who are taking methadone for pain treatment.
On the other hand, the bill is designed to collect 1.5 million dollars to be used mainly for heroine prevention programs state wide and general drug intervention and recovery programs for addicts. The legislators who created the bill argue that there are plenty of methadone treatment clinics for recovering addicts but not enough long-term, in-patient recovery programs. This is much due to funding issues in the state’s budget.
As of now, there are seven major methadone clinics in West Virginia that are owned by the CRC Health Group, a California-based company. The CRC owned clinics have also met the bill with opposition, arguing that they spend millions of dollars a year for community prevention and recovery programs and that the tax would only affect them negatively. Nonetheless, state-law-makers argue that there just isn’t enough aid available to recovering addicts and more must be done to try and solve the state’s epidemic of opiate addictions.
