Beny J. Primm: medic with a mission; New York City doctor helps and gives hope to hard-core addicts

Ebony, August, 1989 by Rhoda E. McKinney

Beny J. Primm Medic With A Mission

DR. BENY J. PRIMM is in the lifesaving business. His mission isto help and give hope to New York City's hard-core heroin addicts. it is a major task, but he continually rises to the challenge. As founder and executive director of the 20-year-old Addiction Research and Treatment Corporation, with six Brooklyn- and Manhattan-based drug facilities, Dr. Primm attempts to accomplish that goal. But he claims to be neither a saint nor savior, just one many trying to make his city a better place in which to live.

Doc Primm, as he is called by some 250 ARTC employes and 2,000 patients, says his organization is a "human services conglomerate." Not only are addicts given treatment, but social workers and psychologists are on duty to provide therapy for children of addicts, battered women and hard-to-place foster children.

"I saw a need to treat addicts," says the 61-year-old widower and father of four. "I also realized that people in this community needed services that were not being provided. If they were, they were not culturally relevant."

So it was in the early 1960s when Dr. Primm, then a self-professed "hotshot" anesthesiologist, was inspired to make drug regabilitation his main priority and a "relevant" endeavor for the community. Weary of dispensing Band-Aid solutions to emergency-room patients suffering from injuries related to crime and narcotics, he began on his own to treat addicts with methadone in abandoned buildings and on the streets of Harlem. Methadone, a synthetic narcotic, is a controversial but widely used treatment for opiate addiction. It helps to soften the physical and psychological effects of withdrawal. In 1969, with funding from the New York State Division of Substance Abuse Services, Dr. Primm opened ARTC and his first methadone maintenance clinic.

Although Dr. Primm is aware that numerous critics question the use of methadone therapy, he continues to support the drug as a safe and effective way of alleviating the need for opiate narcotics. He is quick to point out that methadone alone, however, will not solve a lifetime of addiction.

"I understand the theory that using methadone is like exchanging one drug for another," he says of the procedure that some people criticize. "But I beg to differ. If people can get off drugs and stay off them, that's good. But those people who have failed continuously need something else. They are chronically addicted. Drug-free theraphy has its place and chemical therapy has its place for treating the chronic addict who can't give up drugs without relapsing."

Some clients who utilize ARTC outpatient treatment clinics walk in off the street or are referred by other institutions. When entering the program, each patient receives a medical examination to determine his or her particular type of abuse. The patient is then screened for psychological counseling and evaluated for the proper doseage of methadone. In addition to attending weekly counseling sessions, an addict must come to the clinic daily to receive methadone and attend a self-help group similar to those associated with Alcoholics Anonymous.

Dr. Primm has been rewarded for his work and research in the drug field. He was on the short list for William Bennett's job as drug czar. During the Reagan administration he served on the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodefiency Virus Epidemic (AIDS) and on the White House Conference for a Drug Free America. He has also received several awards and citations.

Treating addicts appears to be Dr. Primm's personal addiction. Lately, he has been talking about retiring and moving south. Florida, he says, needs an ARTC program. Maybe he'll buildt more clinics, though he is not sure. But one thing is certain: wherever Doc Primm goes, he'll be caring for people and trying to make their city a little better than it was.