"The city's clinics are not going to compromise the medically based needs of patients," says Dr. Marc Galanter, a professor of psychiatry at New York University who directs substance-abuse services at Bellevue. "We're not going to terminate patients' methadone to see if they can survive." Instead, he says, patients will be fully informed of the range of options open to them, including abstinence. In the end, Galanter says, "the course of treatment will be tailored to the individual's needs."

At the city's private programs, too, administrators are discussing new ways to serve their clients better. "The mayor's remarks have served as a springboard for the field to discuss the services we provide and the ways in which we can continue to improve patient care," says Eileen Pencer, the president of the Lower Eastside Service Center.

So, nearly six months after Rudolph Giuliani promised to phase out methadone in the city, there seems little chance of this actually happening. On the contrary, the mayor's comments have helped spark a major reassessment of how methadone is delivered in New York -- a process that, in the end, can only benefit the city's clients.

The mayor would no doubt like to claim credit for this. And had he articulated his concerns about methadone in a reasonable fashion, he might deserve it. By instead turning the issue into a moral crusade, he frightened the city's methadone clients, got into a spat with the nation's drug czar, and handed the city's methadone community a major PR victory. In the past few months, New York's methadone providers have received more favorable publicity than they had in the previous 25 years. And they have Rudy Giuliani to thank for it.

Related:

• Archive: “Features”
• Articles by Michael Massing
• Table of Contents: Jan 11, 1999 issue of New York | Subscribe!