The $1.7 million Turning Point Clinic is on the lower level of the New Life church, and is designed to become the largest methadone facility in Maryland, the Baltimore Sun reported on April 25. The clinic, paid for almost solely with city funds, will add 200 methadone treatment slots to the 3,800 already available in Baltimore. Eventually, the clinic hopes to have 3,000 treatment slots, some of them residential.

"It's tremendous," said Bonnie L. Cypull, president of Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems, which administers drug treatment programs in the city. "It'll be 200 people who don't have to wait any more. I predict this will be full within a month."

Turning Point got its start long before President Bush took office and declared support for treatment in faith-based settings. Rev. Milton E. Williams said he decided to put the clinic in the church when he realized that spiritual counseling alone wasn't helping.

"Giving them Jesus wasn't enough," he said. "We struggled with the issue, but when we came to grips with the idea of doing nothing, it would mean that our community would continue to deteriorate because of crime."

Williams said he had no qualms about putting the clinic in the church building. He said clinic workers will offer spiritual counseling to those who choose it, and no one will be obligated to join the church. The church and clinic will have separate entrances.

Cypull said her agency would monitor the clinic monthly to make sure clients are not turned away based on their faith or required to attend church services. "They will be highly regulated," she said.

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley praised the willingness of the church and local elected officials to open the clinic so close to home. "There are people who say we need more drug treatment," he said. "But nobody wants people to get healed in their own house."