Big New Addictions Research Center Set To Be Built in New York

Addiction Treatment Industry Newswire

03/16/2014 -ATIN – A big new addiction treatment research center is being planned and is now set to be built in New York, an institution that holds out the promise of perhaps becoming one of the most important places for hands-on clinical research into addiction treatment ever to be built in the U.S. In part backed by a $1M grant f

rom the New York State Economic Development Council, a highly unique grouping of scientists, medical professionals and real estate developers is behind Calverton Addiction Research Education: New York, CARE NY, which expects to have a nearly 100,000 sf new build on a 34-acre Suffolk County Long Island campus complete and up and running within the next year and a half.

Unique Integration of Treatment and Research

In an absolutely key advancement for the $10M project, local zoning officials on Thursday gave the final green light for the clinical research center, which will have 130 beds of residential capacity where research subject volunteers, and private pay clientele, will have treatment stays of up to 120 days. Addictions scientists involved in the project called the building of the center “a dream come true” in terms of advancing evidence-based practices for the addiction treatment field, a critical weapon in the never-ending battle to get commercial insurance payors to start increasing their share of payment for the nation’s addiction treatment bill. The sole dissenter on the zoning board explained his dissent in terms of not agreeing with the placement of residential treatment in an area specially zoned, and with tax breaks associated, to promote industrial development, according to published

reports. Scientists countered that reasoning by pointing out the decades of disappointing failed addictions research that depended on pulling subjects off the streets, saying so many research subjects failed to show up and finish treatment that research project after research project wound up down the drain because of failure to come up with statistically meaningful study results. The implication is that the 41,000 sf of the CARE NY project associated with residential housing should be viewed kind of as an extension of the 15,000 sf of lab space so important is it that researchers be able to rely on statistically meaningful levels of subject participation in research studies. The property will also have 20,000 sf of administrative space, a gymnasium and indoor pool as well as other structures.

No Court Mandated Clients

CARE NY CEO Andrew Drazan said in local reports that research subject volunteers will not be of the kind that are forced into treatment by legal troubles or to avoid jail time and that CARE NY would not be getting volunteers, and thus funding, from drug courts and the like. With court mandated clients it can sometimes be that clients are gaming the system – young men who are really dealers, not addicted at all in fact, but just seeking to avoid jail time and have the possibility of record expungement – whose inclusion in a research study would for obvious reasons be totally inappropriate and severely impact the quality of data coming out of any study in which such a subject would be included.

Follow the Money?

While Drazan was not immediately available for comment, it was not clear in documentation submitted so far around the various zoning and board approvals for CARE NY where the money was going to come from to fund stays for research study volunteers in what seems to promise to be CARE NY’s quite luxurious 34-acre spread in Riverhead, NY – smack in the middle of the gorgeous area around Peconic Bay off Long Island Sound and a hop-and-a-skip from the Hamptons. While research seems to be the primary driver of the project the danger always becomes that, in the need for revenue, CARE NY just devolves into another high-end treatment center pushing and shoving in the increasingly crowded market for the rich man’s addiction treatment dollar and somewhere along the way the big research center gets the back burner.

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