AUGUSTA (AP) — Maine lawmakers hope new laws expanding access to the opioid reversal drug naloxone will stem overdose deaths.
But advocacy groups say Maine hasn’t done enough prevention and treatment in the midst of a crisis.
Drug overdose deaths in the state rose to 376 last year, from 208 in 2014.
Republican Gov. Paul LePage has been a critic of the repetitive use of naloxone, but has announced steps to increase access to treatment for hundreds of uninsured residents.
The governor says Democrats fight his anti-drug efforts and that state spending on substance abuse treatment will reach $80 million this year. LePage also is pushing the arrests of drug users to connect them with treatment. He also claims Maine will spend $80 million on substance abuse treatment this fiscal year- up from $49 million in 2008.
But critics say LePage also has pushed to trim MaineCare, thus reducing access to drug treatment.
“We know there are thousands who need access to treatment who don’t have insurance and who don’t have any way of getting that treatment,” said Malory Shaughnessy, executive director of the Alliance for Addiction and Mental Health Services. She called the plans a “drop in the bucket.”
Here is a look at what the legislature has done so far to combat the opioid crisis:
NALOXONE
A new law allows corrections officers to administer the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.
A widely supported bill would fix a law meant to allow pharmacists to dispense naloxone to drug addicts and their loved ones.
“If we allow our young to die of overdose, rather than act and believe that they can recover and become productive members of our community and state, then we have not only sold our state short, we have sold human life short,” bill sponsor Republican Rep. Karen Vachon said.
That bill is headed to the desk of LePage, who’s argued that naloxone enables drug addiction.
Lawmakers, however, killed the governor’s bill to require municipalities and counties to recover the cost of naloxone from repeat recipients.
NEEDLE EXCHANGES
Lawmakers failed to pass a bill creating safe locations for people to self-administer drugs and decriminalize hypodermic needles.
The governor vetoed the latter bill over concerns about “decriminalizing certain drug paraphernalia in the midst of an addiction epidemic.”
Democratic Rep. Mike Sylvester said other countries use safe injection sites and that Maine lawmakers should explore all avenues.
GOOD SAMARITANS
Lawmakers failed to override a veto on Democratic Rep. Barbara Cardone’s bill to provide limited immunity to those who report drug overdoses.
LePage has successfully called for more drug enforcement agents to combat the drug epidemic and said the criminal justice system is a good way to get drug users into treatment.
If the bill passed, LePage said the person who called in an overdose “would then not be able to benefit from the help that can be found once arrested.”
Oamshri Amarasingham, advocacy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, said the best approach is treatment and prevention.
“Maine keeps arresting more and more people for drug use, yet more and more people keep dying,” she said.
A kit with naloxone, also known by its brand name Narcan, is displayed at the South Jersey AIDS Alliance in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
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