The nation has an estimated 600,000 heroin users but only 115,000 treatment slots.

A Senate proposal allocates $30 million for treatment slots controlled by prosecutors.

Though the city is in the middle of a crack epidemic, it said, most treatment slots were still for methadone maintenance.

This would help keep an addict coming back until a treatment slot was ready, meanwhile protecting against infection.

The city is thought to have 250,000 heroin addicts, some of whom cite long waits for treatment slots.

One result is that many of the available treatment slots do not match the addiction needing treatment.

I told him he would have to go to Norwalk or Waterbury, if we could find a treatment slot.

But money for more treatment slots does nothing by itself to address the main problem.

The survey, a spot check by a business group, found about a 7 percent vacancy rate, 351 openings in 23 programs with 4,779 treatment slots.

With more than 500,000 addicts in the city, he said, the approximately 50,000 treatment slots were grossly insufficient.