- http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/pages/methadonemap
- http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/243330/
Provide names of other journalists involved.
John Lundy, Andrew Krueger, Don Davis
List date(s) this work was published or aired.
Sept. 16, 17 and 18; Sept. 23, 24, 25, 26; Oct. 14, Nov. 11, Nov. 14., Dec. 7
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
Methadone, a drug available since the 1960s and deemed by the National Institute of Health and the Centers for Disease Control as “the most effective treatment for opiate addiction,” is in essence a risk-versus-reward system. Proponents say it’s better to have addicts of drugs such as heroin and Oxycontin hooked and functioning on methadone — itself a strong, risky narcotic — than to be breaking laws to get a fix. But in Minnesota, and the Northland in particular, that treatment comes at a steep cost, a News Tribune investigation has found. Since 2001 in Minnesota, 392 people have died of methadone-involved overdoses. From 2006 to 2010, the number of deaths almost equals those who died from firearms in homicides. Other findings: * Methadone is far less effective a treatment for drug addiction compared to other forms of treatment in Minnesota * The public dollars used for methadone treatment have skyrocketed — and weren’t tracked until requested by the News Tribune * Methadone provided at clinics is easily acquired by drug dealers, often on the public dime, and then turned around and sold on the streets.
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
Taking a cue from the Seattle Times, which used state data to investigate the link between methadone deaths in Washington state and people using methadone for pain, the News Tribune obtained a copy of a database maintained by the Minnesota Department of Health of all people who have died from drug-related poisonings from 2000 to 2010, the most recent year the data was available. That database listed people who died from accidental methadone overdoses and sometimes provided additional descriptions of the deaths, such as whether other drugs were in their system. The News Tribune also obtained medical records, medical examiner reports, police reports and examined court files to find methadone-related deaths from 2010 to about July 2012. An extensive review of those records, along with interviews with surviving friends and family members, found that the majority of the methadone-involved deaths in St. Louis and Carlton counties were from people using the drug in addiction treatment or abusing it to get high. To examine the effectiveness of methadone treatment, the News Tribune first asked the state’s Department of Human Services, which licenses and inspects the programs, what records it uses to examine not only the effectiveness of methadone but other forms of chemical dependency treatment. The DHS provided admission and discharge reports for all chemical dependency treatment providers in Minnesota. That data allowed the newspaper to look at the performance of the state’s methadone clinics and compare it to other types of chemical dependency treatments. To determine whether use and abuse of opiates was increasing in Minnesota, the News Tribune obtained arrest and seizure data from the state Department of Public Safety, as well as data from the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which tracks the legal distribution and sales of narcotics down to three-digit ZIP codes across the country. For example, Duluth, Hermantown and Proctor share the 558″ ZIP code. The News Tribune also reviewed numerous state and federal research reports on methadone deaths and hundreds of pages of inspection reports on methadone clinics throughout the country and interviewed dozens of drug experts, state officials, law enforcement officials, methadone counselors and current and former.”
Explain types of human sources used.
The News Tribune interviewed numerous current and former methadone treatment patients, addiction treatment experts, proponent and opponents of methadone, state and federal administrators for methadone treatment, law enforcement officers, and confidential informants who have worked with police on narcotics investigations
Results:
The investigation had several results: First, the day before the last of the six-day series was set to run, the Minnesota Department of Human Services informed the Duluth methadone clinic that it was revoking its license. While the order contained no mention of our stories, the Department was well aware of our investigation and findings on the clinic, as we interviewed their administrators several times prior to publication, informing them of our findings that patients were regularly selling methadone from the clinic and overdosing. We shifted gears for that day’s story and included the news that the state was revoking the clinic’s license, as well as published the results of our own investigation into the clinic, based on several years’ worth of state records and indepth interviews with former employees. Second, St. Louis County also announced that it was going to start the work of seeking bids to open another methadone clinic. The director of the County’s Human Services Department cited the News Tribune’s investigation and said she wanted the next clinic to be run in a more responsible manner, making more concerted efforts to cut down on the diversion of the methadone and to wean people from the treatment. A hearing by the Minnesota Legislature was also held in part due to our investigation. A few weeks after our series was published, two area men were killed when the vehicle they were in was struck by a woman who was allegedly high on methadone. After that accident, legislators held a hearing on Dec. 6 to gather information on whether methadone treatment needed stricter enforcement in Minnesota. Prior to the hearing, legislators were told that as a primer to understanding the treatment as well as the issues and controversies surrounding it, they should read the Duluth News Tribune’s series of stories. The Legislature will now propose changes to state law on methadone treatment when the session convenes in January.
Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
Several patients at the Duluth methadone clinic called furious with our reporting, saying that a possible closure of the clinic would likely lead to more crime as addicts sought to maintain their addiction to opiates in other ways. There has been no significant challenge to the accuracy or fairness of the reporting of the stories.
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
When I realized what type of undertaking this would be in order to fully report this story, it helped to break it down into the types of questions that needed to be asked, and then what data, records and data analysis would be required to answer those questions. That helped plot out what type of experts and sources I’d need to speak with in order to add depth to the records and data in the story. It also required patient editors who knew this type of series would take time to report, and making sure that you’re working on other projects to keep them happy.