The members of a state task force on harm reduction say they're uncertain about whether Maine should authorize the opening of sites that allow people to safely use drugs in a supervised setting.
In a report to the Legislature Thursday, Gordon Smith, director of Maine's opioid response, said the group is hesitant in part due to how the Trump administration might come down on the issue.
"It wouldn't make a lot of sense to dump a tremendous amount of time, money and effort to open a site if your U.S. attorney — you have to be appointed in Maine on a permanent basis — said he or she would shut it down," Smith said.
The legality of safe-use sites is unsettled in federal law, though there are three such facilities throughout the country. Two are in New York, and a third opened in Providence, Rhode Island, earlier this year. Vermont is trying to open the nation's fourth site.
The data show that safe-use sites have immediate positive outcomes for their participants, Smith said.
"But the evidence in terms of whether or not in that whole community or in the whole county, it would have a positive impact upon overdoses generally or fatal overdoses is not well established," he added.
The task force recommends that if Maine authorized safe-use sites, it should be up to each municipality to choose whether to open one. But Smith acknowledged that approach would make it more difficult to reach people in rural areas who are struggling with substance use disorder.
Nearly 5,800 Mainers have died from a drug overdose over the last 16 years, according to the task force. Fatal drug overdoses declined by roughly one-third in Maine over the last two years, but the state is still averaging more than one overdose death a day.
