YORK, Maine – York County Sheriff William King said the average daily population of the county jail is around 240, but it typically goes down significantly during Christmas week as prisoners jockey to get out.
This past Christmas, 270 prisoners were at the jail. Why? In part because a burgeoning number of drug dealers being arrested on the turnpike in York County on their way north to sell heroin and ended up in jail awaiting court appearances.
The anecdote was shared with about 75 people from throughout York County and beyond who gathered at the York Public Library to discuss and seek solutions to an opioid prescription drug and heroin problem that experts say is spiraling upward with every passing year.
The trends are troubling, said Roy McKinney, of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency. In a 2013 study, Maine was No. 2 in overall opioid use among eight states studied. The number of drug induced deaths increased six fold in just a decade, he said. And then in 2014, “heroin came on the scene with a vengeance.”
The dealers are part of “trafficking organizations from Massachusetts and New York, and they’re coming to Maine and bringing their violence with them,” said Agent Mike Wardrop of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
And they’re selling to “normal everyday people who got addicted to opiates legally to begin with. It’s affecting every segment of our society. It scares me to death to see it in our schools,” said York Police Chief Douglas Bracy.
Several themes emerged among the law enforcement, treatment, medical, school and prevention professionals on a forum panel, though. Chief among them was cooperation between and among these groups, as everyone looks to find solutions to a problem in a state that has limited funds. But several people also talked about the need for residents of each community to address addiction, and not marginalize it.
Among those speaking was Matt Braun, who has been in recovery for the past six years and has started a Biddeford chapter of Young People in Recovery. He said it’s difficult enough freeing yourself from addiction but it is made harder when the communities where they live turn away.
“It troubles me when I see people like me discriminated against. Landlords don’t want to rent to us, employers don’t want to hire us. So recovery isn’t very visible for those reasons. People don’t want to tell. Even though I’ve become a productive member of society and I’m bettering my community, people still see me as that same person.”
The treatment, prevention and school people on the panel said it’s clear from the data that many adults who have addiction problems started when they were 13 and 14 years old. York High School Principal Meghan Ward and Traip Academy Principal Eric Waddell said they are working to identify and help students who are exhibiting at-risk behavior.
Ward said she is looking into training educators to assess student behavior so they can recognize “when someone is coming to the school high or substance involved. Once we do that, we want to make sure we have the resources at our local disposal. We have a social responsibility to get our students on the right path,” she said.
Caren Klein of the Cottage Program at York Hospital, an intensive outpatient recovery addiction program, said “unfortunately, there’s not a lot of substance abuse services in York County. I wish there was more money out there for other agencies. For instance, there should be substance abuse counselors at all of our high schools. And there really isn’t that much.”
Dr. Robert Hulefeld, director of emergency services at York Hospital, said it’s an “uncomfortable topic” for doctors, “who have a mandate to alleviate pain and suffering but also have a social responsibility to patients and their families.” He said he’d like to see prescription monitoring programs cross state lines so there can be a true picture of doctor shopping, and more treatment options, community resources and AA-type programs.
“This is part of my daily life. This is a problem,” he said.
King said he recalls hearing about people stranded on rooftops of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina begging to be rescued. “If that happened in Maine, no one would be on the rooftop saying, ‘help me, help me,’ because we’d help them. We’re going to solve this. It is a challenge, but we’ll solve it because we’re Mainers.”