OLD TOWN, Maine — Police Chief Scott Wilcox remembers a time when heroin and other opioids were hard to find in Old Town. Not anymore.
“Old Town has a definite problem with heroin,” Wilcox said recently. “We’ve taken over 3,000 bags of heroin off the streets” in the last year.
In an attempt to turn things around, city leaders last week kicked off a drug amnesty program called Safe Passage that is designed to help those using drugs illegally to get clean and on the path to recovery.
“We’re here to help,” Wilcox said. “We’re going to help them get into treatment centers. If they come into the [Police Department] and they ask for help, they’ll get help. In turn, we hope to help the community heal.”
Safe Passage allows users “to voluntarily bring their drugs and paraphernalia to the police station at any time; in turn, no charges will be filed, even if someone has a past drug history the department is aware of,” a Facebook post about the new program states. “Officers will assist those who want help.”
Similar programs are popping up around the U.S. and Maine, following in the footsteps of the “Angel initiative” started in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where police officers send addicts to recovery programs instead of taking them to jail, which recently attracted national attention.
Operation HOPE — Heroin-Opiate Prevention Effort — kicked off Feb. 1 in Farmington, a similar program started in Scarborough last fall, and others are in the works in Portland, as well as in Oxford and Kennebec counties.
“It isn’t new to law enforcement,” Wilcox said. “It’s a program that is happening across the country at different agencies. We believe in the three-prong approach with law enforcement, prevention and education.”
A total of 272 people died in Maine during 2015 from drug overdoses, a 31 percent jump over 2014, which saw a record 208 overdose deaths, Attorney General Janet Mills said earlier this month. Of those, 157 were linked to heroin, fentanyl or a combination of the two opiates.
The city is not alone in its struggle with opiate drug abuse, with increased arrests for heroin and other opiates reported statewide.
“Maine has certainly hit an all-time high with problems with opiates,” the Old Town police chief said.
While the new program will assist those who ask for help, “We are attacking it aggressively.”
Wilcox added, “The city I grew up in is not the city I came back to.”
The new amnesty program already has started to make a positive change, he said.
“We just unveiled it … and I’ve already had a phone call,” Wilcox said.