This is the place Vermont has come to, kicking and screaming.

Keith Griggs, an addict jailed for violating his furlough conditions, is denied his court-ordered dose of methadone.

The Corrections Department says there's no way it can allow the man to have his dose even though a judge ordered the treatment.

This would be against prison policy and would violate state law, which requires methadone treatment to be administered by a hospital, Griggs is told.

Nine days and three court orders later, including a ruling from the Vermont Supreme Court, the Corrections Department releases Griggs early so he can continue his treatment.

If there weren't so much pain involved, this whole fiasco would be laughable.

How could the Corrections Department not foresee this problem?

Hasn't Commissioner John Gorczyk been listening to the debate over methadone? Doesn't he know that Vermonters are traveling to Massachusetts for methadone treatment, and that the Legislature has authorized money so hospitals can begin offering methadone treatment?

And, as Marilyn Skoglund, associate justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, correctly observed, if Vermont judges are ordering methadone treatment, isn't it likely that some of those ordered into treatment will violate their parole and end up in jail?

The state does have a policy: detoxify. No opiates, not even synthetic opiates such as methadone, in prisons.

People like Griggs are left go without their treatment and suffer the physical withdrawal symptoms.

Now we're at the crux of the debate over methadone.

Some, like Gov. Howard Dean, see methadone as an addictive substance that can be ''kicked'' by waiting through the worst, painful hours of its physical grip.

Others, including those who are living productive lives while on methadone treatment, say that's wrong. They say methadone or some other substitute is critical for recovering addicts to make up for the neurochemical changes wrought by long-term heroin addiction.

Dean says one option is for the state to consider a separate facility where prisoners can be treated. But such a facility, if it is even going to be built, is years from reality.

Dean also says, correctly, that methadone is not the only treatment of choice. Dean is right to keep the state moving forward on a range of treatment options, although so far, the pace is too slow.

However, if Vermonters are being ordered into methadone treatment by Vermont's judicial system as part of their furlough conditions, the state ought to find a way to support them.

Ship them to Massachusetts. Arrange for them to be treated in the state hospital in Waterbury.

It won't be cheap. But the state shouldn't order treatment on the one hand and withhold it on the other.