AUGUSTA, Maine - Gov. Paul LePage convened his summit on Maine’s drug crisis behind closed doors and left the event without talking to reporters. But other participants in the meeting did outline the basics of a new plan in response to a rising tide of overdose deaths this year.
Maine has witnessed 105 overdose deaths so far in 2015, and participants at the summit have decided to set up three working groups to improve law enforcement, treatment and prevention.
The U.S. Attorney for Maine, Tom Delahanty, is heading up the effort to set up those work groups. "I kind of volunteered, because the one thing I did not want to happen is to leave here today without a plan. I think we have the beginning on one."
Maine Attorney General Janet Mills says it's clear that stricter enforcement will not be enough to reduce the flow of drugs into the state. She says police on the streets are also dealing with Mainers who are addicted and often commit crimes to pay for drugs.
"You've got to have a place to send those people from the emergency room so they are not just walking out, going back to the streets, back to their apartment and shooting up heroin again," Mills said.
But Public Safety Commissioner John Morris says the most immediate result of the summit is his decision to commit existing state resources to create a special intelligence unit, led by the State Police, to stop the flow of drugs from Mexico through larger cities and states and into rural areas like Maine.
"The drug issue is huge. And anybody that doesn’t recognize it has their head in the sand," he said. "Increased communication between all members of the community - private, federal National guard, Maine law enforcement - is all going to help resolve this problem."
Morris says the intelligence effort will build on an existing program that uses four National Guard soldiers acting as intelligence analysts.
Maine Drug Enforcement Agency Director Roy McKinney says his 40 agents are facing a constantly changing environment, which is focusing more and more on herion. "This year, the first six months - 206 heroin investigations, where the synthetic narcotic investigations numbered 95."
No lawmakers were invited to the governor’s summit. But Sen. Anne Haskell, a Portland Democrat, spoke with reporters outside. "You can’t categorize people any more," she said. "You can’t say that our law enforcement - that Chief Sauschuck or Sheriff Merry - are only interested in the law enforcement side. That is just not true anymore."
On July 31, emergency crews in Portland responded to 14 suspected overdoses in a 24-hour period. Rep. Mark Dion, a Democrat who has served as the Cumberland County sheriff, says the work groups will have to come up with strategies to reach people long before they are addicts.
"I am not sure how much deterrent we can provide if one is willing to stick a needle into their vein," Dion says, "I mean, every time they do that they are making a life or death decision and they are not deterred by that choice."
Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew says her department will work with the groups that are being set up to address treatment and prevention.
"We have got to increase our efforts to improve the approach taken in these treatment services to create standardized approaches, to create accountability," Mayhew says.
Tom Delahanty, the U.S. Attorney, says he hopes to have the work groups organized early in September.
